


I don't gamble but if I did I'd bet on us

by ships_to_sail



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Radio, Bad Puns, Banter, DJ Patrick, First Kiss, First Meetings, Flirting, Light Angst, M/M, playlist included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail
Summary: “Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick and you’re on the air!” His voice sounds too loud in his headphones, and he hopes to God he’s not shouting. Shouting at his first ever on-air caller would be just his fucking luck.“Hi, Patrick? Yes, who do I speak to about the fact that you’ve played six Lumineers songs in the last hour?”*Patrick is a late-night folk radio DJ, David is the owner of a car with a broken radio dial and opinions that need to be shared.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 225
Kudos: 894





	1. I've been living a lonely life

**Author's Note:**

> all my love to storieswelove and helvetica_upstart for the beta, the title help, and for being absolutely delightful human beings. 
> 
> Playlist for the fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2DBZQbygq31wPSbyajEQKC?si=2eNXME9WTh6Zp0P6YFIbIA)!

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick and you’re on the air!” His voice sounds too loud in his headphones, and he hopes to go he’s not shouting. Shouting at his first ever on-air caller would be just his fucking luck. 

“Hi, Patrick? Yes, who do I speak to about the fact that you’ve played six Lumineers songs in the last hour?”

The voice on the other end of the phone is pitchy, maybe a little shrill, but has crisp consonants and a rhythm that makes Patrick smile. These are the kind of things you notice when you listen to voices, all day, and rarely get to put a face with them. He tries to picture the face that goes with the voice, knows he sounds more sincere with the callers when he’s able to do that, but for some reason all he can see are big, brown-black eyes and a smile that isn’t really there. “Um, hello?”

“Sorry about that-” he checks the computer screen and sees the name ROSE, JONATHAN under the caller’s name “-Jonathan.”

“Ew, what? No, oh my god, no. What?” He cuts Patrick off before he can finish, and it throws Patrick for a second. He’s not used to talking to folks with quite this much energy this time of night. “David, it’s David. Jonathan is my father.”

“David, then.” Patrick looks at the clock. It’s half past two in the morning. “You were calling about The Lumineers?”

“I just think it’s irresponsible for a radio host to play the same band for that many songs in a row.” He says it like Patrick didn’t pick it, like he’s trying to walk someone who’s never heard of a radio or a playlist or a song through the proper selection methods. Patrick bites the inside of his cheek and tries to keep his voice even.

“Even when it’s a power hour?”

He can hear the staticy hum of the other car on the other end of the line, the little rush of breath as David breathes into his cell. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Well, David, it’s exactly how it sounds. Every now and then here on ‘What the Folk’ we dedicate one entire hour to just one band. And tonight…”

“...is The Lumineers. Right. Well, this is officially what Hell’s waiting room sounds like then.”

Patrick laughs. “Well at the risk of losing an eager listener, may I suggest you change the station before you end up driving off the road in anguish?”

Patrick thinks he hears a little scoff, a sound that could be a laugh, or could be a beard scraping against the speaker, but for some reason the voice doesn’t sound like someone who has a beard. It’s weird when Patrick thinks it, and it’s weirder that he’s getting ready to ask it when the voice speaks, sounding pained. “See, I would if I could. But this lovely little vehicle of mine doesn’t  _ have  _ a radio dial.”

“I can only assume you’re calling me from a smartphone?”

“And I can only assume you’re familiar with the level of 4G reception in the middle of nowhere, Canada.”

Patrick commiserates with a small hum. He’s aware that this is not the most riveting radio he’s ever hosted. But if his bosses are going to force him to stay on the third block, he’s going to play what he wants to listen to and talk to the people who catch his interest. 

“Well in that case, David, I’ve got good news. We’re just lining up our last song on tonight’s power block, and oldie but a goldie from their self-titled debut album, this is ‘Big Parade’.” He presses play and his toes start to tap inside his shoes. He goes ahead and cues up the next couple songs while he continues to talk to David, switching them off the air and back to the studio line. “Thanks for calling in tonight.” It’s what he says to everyone he talks to on the air.

“Thank you for literally nothing.”

“Always happy to please.” That’s new. Patrick blushes, even though he’s alone in the studio. 

“In that case, I don’t suppose you could just, like, completely delete the Lumineers catalog from your little computer collection thingy?”

“I feel like it bears repeating that this is a folk station? And that you’re calling in the middle of the night.”

“Your point?”

“It’s my show, David. I like The Lumineers.”

“Ah. Okay. There it is then.” There’s silence on the line, for long enough that Patrick double-checks the computer to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.

“David?”

“I like your show. Normally.” His voice is softer, or the wind on his end is louder— either way, it almost sounded to Patrick like David had said he likes his show. The show he’s spent the last ten minutes on the line complaining about.

“Oh yeah?”

“I mean. It’s not normally my cup of tea, but. I wasn’t kidding when I said that the radio in this car doesn’t have a dial. I literally can’t change it, and out of all the shows on this godforsaken stations, yours is one I don’t, like. Totally hate.”

“Except when I play The Lumineers.”

“Eight songs! You played eight songs!”

“Seven songs, actually. I had eight lined up but then this really pushy listener called.”

And it’s not technically possible to hear a smile, but Patrick thinks that maybe he does anyway. Hears David’s lips curl inward, his fuller lips thinning as he presses them together and tries to keep his face in line. But Patrick can’t hear a smile and doesn’t know what David’s lips look like, and his face could literally be anyone’s.

“Pushy?! Well you are either incredibly impatient, or extremely sure of yourself.”

“And you are extremely energetic for almost three in the morning.”

“I’ve had an illegal amount of espresso this evening.”

“Is that safe?”

“More safe than my driving off the road to Elmdale.”

“What the hell are you doing in Elmdale?” Patrick bites down on the inside of his cheek and mouths ‘what are you  _ doing _ ’ to himself because he has absolutely no business asking a stranger what they’re doing on a country highway not too far from the town he grew up in. 

“I’m...going home. After a business trip.” There’s a suspicion in his voice, a guardedness that wasn’t there before but that Patrick doesn’t blame him for. 

“Late commute.”

“Entrepreneurial hustle. New businesses don’t start themselves.”

“No. No they don’t. Well, in that case, drive safe, David. Wouldn’t want a budding business empire snuffed out before it’s time.” He thinks he hears a laugh. “And thanks for listening.” He says it fondly, and is a little sad when the line clicks dead. But Hozier is finishing up “Wasteland, Baby” and fading into “Eloise” by Penny & Sparrow, and there’s that moment when the bass drum kicks in that always makes Patrick’s heart clench shut for just a moment

“ _ hotter than a June kiss/I’m blushing a shade of licorice” _

*

It’s just past four when he gets behind the wheel of his Toyota, and he rests his head against the steering wheel for a second. The pressure feels good on his forehead, until suddenly it’s cutting into his skin and when he glances in the rear-view mirror he’s got a red mark. He rubs at it absentmindedly as he backs out of the lot, the jazzy sounds of Tessa’s show filling the car. He’s promised himself he’ll start listening to something else, so that he’s not surrounded by work all the time, but he really likes the local jazz and R&B that Tessa packs her show with. 

He’s still a little surprised when he opens the door to his apartment, that Chuckie isn’t there to waddle up and nudge the back of his calf with his wrinkly, bulldog face. And then he remembers  _ why  _ Chuckie isn’t there and he sighs, the air pushed from his lungs. For a second it seems like too much work to take another breath in, but of course his body has other ideas and he is breathing, walking over the threshold and tossing his keys into the empty ceramic bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. The lights aren’t on — of  _ course _ they aren’t; there aren’t any other people in the apartment to turn them on — and Patrick hears the heater kick on. He thinks about turning on the kitchen light, about flipping on the lamp by the couch in the living room and settling in with day-old Chinese and whatever comedy specials he hasn’t seen on Netflix yet.

But the air in the apartment feels heavy, and it presses into Patrick’s shoulders until he hunches forward. He grabs a beer from the refrigerator, lights still off. He slams the door heavily behind him, much harder than he needs to, and kicks off his shoes, actually flips them off his feet so that they bang heavily against the drywall. They land on top of the neat line of shoes Patrick keeps by the front door, because he didn’t really used to have all that much closet space, and realizes that he doesn’t need to leave them out here anymore. It’s stupid, now that he’s got all that room in the closet because Rachel’s shoes aren’t in there. Because Rachel also isn’t in here, hasn’t been for the last two weeks, when she’d made a disgusted, frustrated sound and walked away, closing the door gently behind her, like she didn’t care enough anymore to slam things around.

He sets his beer on the table and scoops the shoes up into his arms and marches them into the bedroom, nudging the closet door open with his toe and throwing them into a pile on the floor. The laces on his running shoes have gotten tangled up with his Oxfords, and he can see the way the Adidas flats he wears to run to the mailbox are folded almost in half. He should fix that, before it sticks that way, but the tangle of shoes looks messy and complicated and exactly like the jumble of thoughts in his head, so he decides to leave it. 

_ ‘Thanks for nothing,’  _ he thinks, and immediately hears David Rose’s voice in his head. It’s a nice voice, even when it’s not being very nice. It makes Patrick smile, and he doesn’t want to be smiling right now.

He goes back to the dining nook to grab his beer when he sees the picture, the only one Rachel left, stuck to the side of the refrigerator they never see unless they’re coming in from the bedroom. Patrick wonders if she left it by mistake, or if she left it because she knows it’s his favorite of them, his arms around her waist, chin on her shoulder, her head turned in towards his neck, face half obscured by the hand that comes up to tuck a piece of hair around her ear. She’s looking at him and he’s looking at the camera and they’re both smiling. They had been happy. At times. 

But that picture had been taken almost a decade ago, when they were both still basically babies, her reporting for the school newspaper as he ran open mic nights and tried to get his local band beyond the local stages. They’d been so hopeful, such hard hustlers, that they’d been too far into their life together before Patrick had to admit that there was some piece of the puzzle that wasn’t fitting together. 

Of course, he hadn’t actually admitted it. That was the entire problem. Because he couldn’t name it, couldn’t put a word to  _ That Thing _ in his stomach,  _ That Thing _ that made him feel like he was going to pass out every time he stopped to think about the life he was building around himself. And if he couldn’t name it, then he couldn’t explain it, and it just sat inside him and continued to grow. As he and Rachel went from dorm rooms to apartments in smaller and smaller radii of one another, until they decided to just bite the bullet and move in together. Once that happened,  _ That Thing _ , whatever it was, didn’t have the space to hide anymore. There wasn’t room for Patrick to shove it back down and cover it with work, orchestrations, new lyrics, trying to get the word out about all his dreams. 

It was  _ The Thing _ that snapped back at her when she asked how he was doing, how the band was progressing, why it was that he hadn’t invited her out to one of their shows in a while. It was  _ The Thing  _ that put him in a pissy mood when his band members called to work on songs, when they called to schedule a practice, when they called to talk to him about anything in general. Until they stopped calling and he was out of the band because  _ god damn it where did the old fucking Patrick go _ ? 

Worst of all, it was  _ The Thing _ that had thrown up indifference and passive-agressive dismissal when Rachel tried to talk to him about it. Patrick couldn’t name it, so he denied it, denied it, denied it until she was gaslit and he was so angry at himself that there wasn’t room for all of the misgivings between them in their tiny, one-bedroom apartment. So Rachel had left, and Patrick had let her take Chuckie. 

She left the same week he started at the radio station, in what was supposed to finally be a break into the music scene that would serve as a step in the right direction. His combined business major/music minor was enough to get him an interview, his few random classes in production technology and radio hosting enough to snag him the midnight to 4:00am slot playing folk music and, because it’s the middle of the fucking night, the occasional early aughts banger. Mostly Britney, occasionally NSYNC, the rare Tina or Mariah. Patrick’s even been known to play Cher, although that did get him an email from his boss about sticking to the genre categories listeners expected and a subtle reminder that he was technically still employed on a trial basis.

Honestly, Patrick wasn’t all that sure how many listeners he was really getting. It wasn’t that he was a bad DJ. In fact, if he was being honest, he thought he was better than a lot of the people working in earlier slots, who had gotten lazy about finding new music, or listening through the deep back catalogs of listener favorites, or giving buzz to the B-sides and up-and-comers. Patrick loved doing all of that, and more, loved the thrill that came with finding something just setting down roots and helping it get off the ground in some small way. 

None of that, however, mattered a good god damn if you factored in the fact that he was playing folk music after midnight on a small Canadian public radio network. Patrick liked being a DJ, had taken to it surprisingly quickly given that it wasn’t a career he’d ever  _ really  _ seen himself having. But he’d always loved making mixes, always loved explaining why he picked what he did and why each song followed the next in a perfect design of his own making. He was the only person he knew who missed the time constraints of physical CDs. It even got less weird, talking to no one in a box by himself. Rationally, he knew he wasn’t talking to  _ nobody _ , but sometimes rationality didn’t seem to make much of a practical difference. 

It’s what makes calls like the one he gets from David Rose so special. Not just because he doesn’t get that many calls, but because he doesn’t get many calls from people with opinions beyond “can you dedicate the new Mumford song to my girlfriend Anna?” The fact, that the first thing David did when Patrick answered the line was yell at him should bother Patrick, should annoy him or make him defensive, but instead it intrigues him. He wants to know what kind of person who listens to the radio doesn’t know what a power hour is, how someone who actually listens to The Lumineers could muster anything worse than neutrality. He’s intrigued by this sharp-witted, strongly opinionated listener who thinks he plays too much folk music during a folk music show. 

He’d been tempted to write his number down. It wasn’t even really a thought, just a pulling in his gut that he wanted to answer. He’d had a pen in one hand, his other already on the mouse to over over the three little ‘more information’ dots on their caller ID recognition software, when his mind had caught up to his body and he immediately clicked the little ‘x’ before he could do something really, job-endingly stupid. He was breathing heavily for some reason, and he literally threw the pen onto his desk. What would he have done? Called David back? Said, “Hi, I’m the DJ you called to snipe at today, and I think you’re fascinating, where do you live?” Patrick was pretty sure that was a page straight out of the Serial Killer Handbook.

But it’s not a big deal to hope that David calls back. It doesn’t hurt anyone to keep his fingers crossed underneath the desk every time the phone rings. Which is does, or starts to, just a little more as the weeks go by. Three one night, five another, even a few people who compliment him on some of the local acts he’s playing, Joel Plaskett and the Dragonettes and Jean LeLoup. Tessa gives him a couple of begrudging head nods when they pass on the shift change, and he even notices that she stops referring to him as ‘the new kid’, at least where he can hear her. He doesn’t get a lot of feedback from the higher-ups, but he figures every week they don’t call to fire him is a good one. 

He settles into a routine, one that doesn’t involve Rachel, or his band mates, or really anyone but himself, anymore. One of the unfortunate side effects of his wonky new hours is that he doesn’t get to see his family that much anymore, starts to miss Bachelor Wednesdays with his cousin Beth and Sunday dinners with his family after church. He starts to lose touch with his old life, but he’s got music and the show and the smallest feeling that he’s starting a ball rolling down hill, and it’s only a matter of time until it starts to gather speed. He still manages to find time to go to the gym, and check out thick nonfiction books from the library that he doesn’t ever read, and he even finds a new favorite coffee shop, ceding his old haunt to Rachel in the unofficial territory battle post break-up. His life doesn’t look like anything he thought it would, but he’s enjoying the difference, enjoying living a life so outside the little boxes other people imagined for him. He even starts to think about getting another dog, a new little guy whose all his, who will be there for him when he opens the door at the end of a long night.

He’s just getting ready to head to the shelter, actually, and almost misses it. He’s got one more throw to commercial and then a three song line up to negotiate and then he’s out the door for a much needed long weekend. The caller light blinks and he so, so badly doesn’t want to press the button, doesn’t want to have to re-arrange the perfect exit he’s got planned. But that’s not his job. His job is to push the button. So he does, while the commercial loop plays in his headphones. 

They’re not on the air, which is good, because he doesn’t look at the screen before he presses the button, and the familiar voice knocks the wind out of him. 

“Am I losing my mind or did you just play a Leslie Feist cover of a Nina Simone song? Is nothing sacred anymore?”

“Holy shit,” Patrick whispers into the phone. “Hello, David Rose.”


	2. I'll be your friend in the daylight again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire thing would be the hottest mess if it weren't for storieswelove. It's also six chapters now, not four, which is also all their fault. I have every intention of finishing this bad boy up by the premier of season six.
> 
> Also, because I'm me, and of course, you can now [listen to the songs mentioned in this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2DBZQbygq31wPSbyajEQKC); the playlist will update as the fic does!

“And that was ‘Little Talks’ by Of Monsters and Men,” the soothing voice on the radio says. “Up next, “I Wish I Was the Moon” by the one and only Neko Case.”

David is on his third post-midnight vendor run in a week, and he’s starting to wonder if he’s going to survive long enough to celebrate Rose Apothecary’s first year. If the dark circles under his eyes and the three paper-to-go cups emblazoned with “Cafe Tropical” are any indication, he probably won’t. It’s bad enough that Stevie had taken one look at him when he’d asked her to come on this drive and hadn’t even pretended to protest. She’d dozed off an hour ago, which meant that David had no one but Patrick’s disembodied voice and some shitty, repetitive folk music to keep him company. 

The problem is David has never  _ done  _ anything like this, devoted this much time and energy into something, with no safety net to catch him when he inevitably gets scared and wants to back out. He barely managed to survive his part-time retail lifestyle, and now he’s expecting himself to be at the same place, at the same time,  _ early  _ every morning. He’s spent so many hours on the internet that he’s developing tension headaches, spent night after night digging into business ebooks and every  _ For Dummies _ search prompt he can think of. And when that doesn’t seem to be enough, he swallows his pride and asks his father, whose business ideas are mostly straight out of a 1996 Forbes, but he does have an uncanny ability to look at a spreadsheet and know what it says. 

It’s with his father’s help that he realizes he’s going to need at least a dozen more vendors to offer the product spread he needs at the price points required to pull in customers and turn a profit. 

Which is how he finds himself running the store during the day, and running across the Canadian countryside at night, meeting with farmers, who are awake far too early, and artists, who are awake far too late. It’s a grueling schedule, made all the worse by the fact that his parents neglected to check the radio when they bought this godforsaken car, so by the time they discovered the radio dial in the car was stuck on the public radio station out of Toronto, it was too late to do anything about it. 

He’s learned to ignore it now, the background hum of news updates and enough classical music to fill the syllabus of a high school music appreciation class. It is, on the whole, preferable to the silence of the wind whistling by the windows. 

It’s preferable, that is, until one night the station starts its new evening programming, “What the Folk,” with an eternally chipper someone named Patrick Brewer. David now spends his middle-of-the-night drives trying to figure out which deity he has most severely pissed off that this is what his life looks like now. 

“Next up, we’ve got a special request: Maggie, this one’s for you, from your forever best friend Andrew. And let me just say, Andrew — good choice.” And the slow strum of “Ho Hey” starts, but it’s not the Lumineers, it’s Lennon and Maisy and David sighs heavily through his nose. His fingers twitch to pick up the phone and call Patrick again, but Stevie is asleep and he doesn’t want to wake her before it’s her turn to drive.

The first time he called, he literally couldn’t help it. He’d been sitting on his hands for days, yelling at the radio, begging for the occasional early pop hit or surprise diva moment. And then one night, he’d gotten into his car past midnight after spending the evening in a surprisingly grueling contract discussion with the granddaughter of an 87-year-old beekeeper, and it took him a few songs to realize that  _ every single one  _ he’d heard since turning on the ignition had been by The Lumineers. The fucking Lumineers. He was pretty sure it was a crime to play the same band for five - now six! - songs in a row no matter who they were. But he's also pretty sure there’s a reason it took him five songs to even be able to tell that they were different songs to begin with. He feels like it’s his moral imperative to call; maybe the DJ has had some sort of stroke and doesn’t realize he’s playing the same band.

Only then Patrick says that they're  _ on the air  _ and holy shit he doesn't think he's ever heard Patrick take a caller on the air before? And he's only calling to yell at him, which is such a dick move. Except, Patrick is also being kind of a dick back, in a nice way, like David gets to be in on it; and for some reason David hears himself saying that he actually  _ likes  _ this dorky as hell, pun-titled folk music radio show. Which is a lie! An absolute lie! 

Okay, maybe  _ some  _ of the songs are pretty, and when it’s late enough at night that it’s early in the morning again, and his eyes are so heavy he can barely keep them open, and all his prickly walls are basically disintegrated from exhaustion, he listens to the lyrics and starts to cry a little bit. That doesn’t mean it’s good music, and it certainly doesn’t mean that he actually likes the show. He’s exhausted. That’s all it is. He’s speaking nonsense because he’s working as hard as he ever has in his life and the reserves of brain matter used to normal amounts of sleep are being starved. 

If he liked the show, he wouldn’t groan every time midnight hits and Patrick’s cheery, kind voice fills his car with his familiar, “Welcome to ‘What the Folk’, friends, I’m Patrick — let’s listen to some music,'' which is the most nothing of a welcome sentence. The fact that it makes David smile while he groans is stupid and beside the point.

And sure, fine. After David, he hears Patrick take more callers – there aren’t exactly a ton of active participants when it comes to calling in, but there are a few voices that start to become regulars — and he has to admit that Patrick is good with them. He takes time to ask them sincere questions, and give them real answers, and play their requests after asking why they want them played, if they have anyone special they’d like to dedicate the song to. He’s patient, and funny, a mean kind-of-biting funny that should be out of place with his earnest sincerity but isn’t. It gets David going more than he’d like to admit, and that annoys David because what kind of person goes around getting little crushes on people on the radio? Like it was 1945 or something.

At the same time, he probably hears Patrick’s voice more in any given day than he does any other human person. He chats with his customers, and his hopefully-future vendors, and even his parents and Alexis when he sees them, but he’s always hustling, always flitting from appointment to sample trial to contract meeting. He’s even had to stop his biweekly “get high and watch a bad movie” dates with Stevie, because he needs the evening hours to continue to fill his contracts. 

So far, he’s managed to secure the cat-hair scarves, the bunny-fur knit caps, two different kinds of honey from the crazy old bee lady, and the unisex scent products from the Amish family down the road. He has his fingers crossed he’s about to lock down a deal on a new line of rosé from the vintner a few hours outside of town, and a collection of seasonally changing body scrubs and moisturizers made by an honest to God cloister three towns over. He’s still got a few more spots beyond that, but he’s proud of how well he’s already been doing, and is starting to think, in his heart of hearts, that he might really be able to pull this off. 

However, along with all that success, came the fact that he didn’t have much else in his life  _ but  _ the business. And, ironically enough, hours and hours of folk music.

“What even is this?” He hadn’t even noticed that Stevie had woken up, and now she already sounds grumpy. 

“What’s what?”

“This?” Stevie is waving a hand in front of the radio, and wearing a wrinkled-brow expression that makes it seem like David has picked one of the several road kill installments they’ve passed and affixed it to the center of the dashboard.

“It’s the radio.”

“Golly gee, they’re putting those in cars now?”

“You asked.” 

“I didn’t mean —” she punches him lightly in the arm instead of answering, and he screeches at her. “I meant that this doesn’t exactly strike me as your musical taste. Remember when you saw my Sarah McLachlan poster?”

“I told you, I spent two summers following Lilith Fair,” he says with an injured sniff. “Besides, it’s not bad.” He doesn’t know why he’s defending the station. He can’t, because folk music isn’t really his taste, but. It’s one thing for him to mock himself and to mock the music; when Stevie does it, it feels like she’s attacking Patrick for some reason and David doesn’t like that. “The guy who hosts the show usually plays a decent run of stuff.”

“Usually?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning you’ve listened to this station long enough to know what’s ‘usual’?” She puts air quotes around ‘usual’ and he rolls his eyes.

“The. Radio. Dial. Is. Broken.” He says each word as its own sentence and wishes he were surprised when she immediately leans forward to test it for herself. And indeed, the little black knob spins uselessly under her fingers.

“Huh. That sucks.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I feel like we’ve been listening to the same song for the last fifteen minutes.”

“It’s been three different songs.”

“How can you tell?”

He shrugs his shoulders and makes a little scoff in the back of his throat. “Practice.”

Stevie snorts a little laugh but sinks lower in the seat and puts her feet on the dash, even though she knows David hates it, and begins to drum along with the song on the top of her knees.  She starts to hum along with the melody, and then he’s whispering along to some of the words until they’re both singing with their whole chests, practically screaming,  _ “I really fucked it up this time/didn’t I my dear”  _ with all the emphasis on ‘fuck’, like it always should be. When the song ends, they don’t look at each other for several minutes, and when they finally do, they both silently promise to pretend that the last ten minutes just didn’t happen.

They’re at their last pit stop of the night — a diner forty-five minutes outside of town where they order “thank you” pancakes for Stevie and a third caramel macchiato for David — when he calls Patrick. Stevie is in the bathroom so he dials quickly, and talks in a hushed voice. He can hear what she’ll say if she finds him, and he wants to pre-die of an embarrassment of something that hasn’t happened yet. Patrick’s been on a roll tonight, lining up dedication after dedication, and he was in danger of sounding truly, deeply corny. It was bad enough with all the folk music, if he sat by and let Patrick become the late-night Delilah, he’d never forgive himself. He was doing the man a career-saving service, really.

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is “What the Folk” and I’m Patrick. What can I get spinning for you?”

“Am I losing my mind or did you just play a Leslie Feist cover of a Nina Simone song? Is nothing sacred anymore?”

“Holy shit,” he says, so quietly David almost doesn’t hear it. His eyebrows disappear into his hairline, and he files ‘can swear’ to the limited data file he’s got on the kind of person Patrick Brewer is, right besides ‘obsessed with The Lumineers’ and ‘probably wears mid-range denim’. “Hello, David Rose.”

“Hello, Patrick.” He’s smiling because Patrick remembered his name, and he knows it’s not what popped up on the screen because Patrick had called him Jonathan last time. “You didn’t answer my question. Is nothing sacred anymore? And did you really say ‘spinning up’? What decade did you fall out of? Or is it more of a Captain America’s plane, trapped in the ice kind of deal?”

“Hey, that’s America’s Ass you’re talking about right there.” David bites the inside of his cheek, just in case Patrick can somehow hear a smile through the phone. The thought makes him feel like he’s losing his mind.

“That is a fair, if obvious, point. I’m surprised you can swear on the air”

“Luckily for you, we’re not actually on the air at the moment. Why don’t you tell me why you called?” He doesn’t sound angry, but he does sound tired. David glances at the clock and realizes he probably just caught Patrick on his way out the door. 

“Well, I was mostly going to tell you all the romantic song dedications have you veering dangerously close to maudlin, which is not a good look. But I mostly just wanted to call and tell you that I’m with my friend Stevie today and she agrees — all the music you play sounds the exact same. Like, indistinguishable from each other. One big mass of sad guitars and melancholy and men with unkempt beards.” The words pour out of David’s mouth quickly, and he can feel himself ramping up, his free hand moving through the air more and more furiously. 

“So...you called to tell me you have a friend? Congratulations!”

David sucks his teeth a little and this time he can’t hold back the smile. “You are not very polite to your callers. Does your boss know about this?”

He can hear Patrick laugh, although it still sounds tired. “I don’t think I want my bosses knowing about you, David Rose.” His voice goes all low, and a little gravelly, and David doesn’t really know what that means but he thinks it’s a good thing. He wants it to be a good thing, which is a bad thing, because if he’s getting so starved for affection he’s getting all melty at the voice of a radio host, he’s so far beyond fine he may never be able to find it again. “But you’re right. That wasn’t nice, and I’m sorry.”

David’s words, the snarky snipey prickly ones, catch in his throat. He wasn’t braced for sincerity, although a little voice in his head tells him that he may have to start. He’s not sure what to say next and in the panic, his mouth supplies an, “it’s okay,” before his brain can stop it. “I was mostly just calling to complain, anyway.” It sounds so lame, when he says it outloud, and he wants to hang up the phone and fling it into the sun and also maybe crash his car so he doesn’t have to hear Patrick’s voice ever again.

Stevie pops open the car door and slides in beside David, and he can feel his face on fire. He doesn’t want Stevie knowing he called Patrick, but Patrick very obviously didn’t call him, and now he’s stuck on the line with no real exit strategy. Stevie clears her throat and looks at him expectantly. “Let’s go. I want pancakes.”

David nods. “David, you there?” He’s panicking because Stevie is here, and she can only hear his side of the conversation but if she knows he called Patrick he will never hear the end of it. 

“Uh-huh.”

“Who you talking to,” Stevie asks?

“No one.”

“No one what,” Patrick sounds confused. 

“Nothing.”

“Nothing what, David?” Stevie again

“No, I’m talking to him,” David gestures at the phone and at the same time, both from in front of him and directly into his ear, two voices ask:

“Him who?”

“Oh my God!” David is caught in the middle of a 21st century Abbot and Costello routine and he’s over it. “Patrick, thank you for your time, I need to go.”

He’s laughing, and David doesn’t ever want him to stop, but the minute he said Patrick’s name Stevie looked at him with shark eyes, and now she’s just sitting there staring at him, her lips pressed into a thin line, so he really can’t be having this conversation anymore. 

“Any time, David. You know the number.” And Patrick hangs up so David hangs up and Stevie just clicks her tongue and shakes her head at him while he puts the car into drive and navigates them from the gas station back onto the highway.

“So was that Patrick a vendor, or maybe an old New York friend, or…” Stevie is staring at the road, her voice too casual to be casual. 

“No,” David clips off the word.

“An ex-boyfriend of Alexis’s? An ex-boyfriend of yours?”

“It’s the DJ,” he finally says so that she’ll stop guessing and stop talking and stop  _ looking at him like that.  _ “I was talking to Patrick the DJ.”

“And are they doing outgoing calls at the station now? Did you win a prize?”

“If I say yes, will it make you shut up?”

“Mmm, doubtful. I want to know more about this phone call. What did you say?”

“That all the music he plays is derivative and sentimental.”

“Aw, you were calling to flirt.”

“That is not flirting!”

“News flash, David, when you call a boy unprompted to tell him all the things he does that bug you? That’s flirting. Maybe not for normal people. But for you? Without a doubt.”

“You’re full of it. He’s just a radio DJ and I happen to have had a regrettable amount of time to form an opinion about what he plays.” He turns up the volume on the radio, hoping Stevie will drop it.

“Well, folks, I’m about to head out, thank you so much for listening along with us these last several hours. Before I go, I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for all the amazing, loyal listeners we’ve already managed to scoop up, even if this program hasn’t been on the air all that long. There are some people who will say that folk music all sounds the same, that it’s all sad tunes and dirt road lyrics.” David gulps and his knuckles go white on the steering wheel. It wasn’t  _ exactly  _ what he’d said, but it was close enough — and also, not wrong. “But those of us in the know, all of you out there listening, know that the music sounds as diverse as the people who make it. And, because it’s just past dawn and we can probably all use a bit of a pick-me-up, we’re going to close out the show today with a song we all know and love.”

The car fills with the boom-ba-da-boom-bomp repetition of the bass and David and Stevie both groan out loud. It’s not only a repetitive song, it’s also an inescapable ear worm. David knows he’s going to be singing it to himself for the rest of the day.

“Interesting choice,” Stevie says, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“Mmhmm.”

“Almost like it’s pointed.”

“Yeah.”

“Wonder who that could be to.”

“I have no idea. You heard it yourself, the man has plenty of loyal listeners.”

“And I’m sure they all regularly call in to complain about how all the music he plays for his job sounds the same.”

“I do not call regularly.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about you.” He smiles but rolls his eyes because she got him. He turns up the music a little bit — he hates this song, but if he’s going to suffer through it they’re all going to suffer through it. 

_ “When I wake up/well I know I’m gonna be/I’m gonna be the man who wakes up/next to you” _

Stevie clears her throat.

_ “When I go out/yeah I know I’m gonna be/I’m gonna be the man who/goes along with you” _

Stevie coughs and looks at David out of the corner of her eye.

_ “If I get drunk/well I know I’m gonna be/I’m gonna be the man/who gets drunk next to you” _

Stevie hacks like she’s got tuberculosis and swivels in her seat to face David.

“What?!”

“He played a song for you. He played  _ this  _ song for you.”

“This is an awful song.”

“Maybe. But the sentiment is nice.”

They join in on the da-da-da-daaaaas because how can you not, but David can’t just let it go.

“We don’t even really know he played it  _ for me. _ ”

“One more time, listeners, that was “I’m Gonna Be” by The Proclaimers, going out to David Rose. David, I know you’re out there listening, and I hope you know that there’s always more where that came from. That’s going to do it for us today, folks, everyone sit tight because Tessa’s coming up with an in-studio performance that will really knock your socks off.”

David practically punches the power button on the radio, and the sound of air rushing by the car fills the vacuum. He’s not looking at Stevie, not watching her watch him with her teeth peeking out over her lower lip and her eyes shining. He doesn’t look at her when she starts to poke his upper thigh. Doesn’t look at her when she starts to wheedle his name, “David. David. Davidddd.” Doesn’t look at her until he does, until he glares at her and actually sticks out his tongue and turns the radio back on just to drown out the sound of her laughter. 


	3. pray you don't lie awake for me

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick, what can I play for you?”

“I’m just wondering if there’s a specific reason you’ll play Britney but not Christina, or is it just a general wrongness?”

“Hello, David.”

*

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick, how’re you doing today?”

“Miserable, and the June Carter Cash Power Hour isn’t helping. Are you trying to make people cry?”

“Hello, David.”

*

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick, let’s find some music for you.”

“If you play “The Ballad of Love and Hate” one more time this week I will literally drive into a tree. And that will be on your conscience.”

“Hello, David.”

*

It takes Patrick Brewer exactly fourteen weeks and three days before he’s completely exhausted by his job. The first month passes in a blur of learning his way around the soundboard, the computer set-up, Tessa’s weird proclivities when it came to what breakfast food smells she could tolerate in the studio. The second month is fueled largely by adrenaline and the swirl of ideas he can’t manage to turn off once he’s home. He’s halfway through month three when he hits a wall, and basically moves into the new coffee shop he found in the months post-Rachel. 

It’s his first stop on his way to the studio: a triple espresso that is, ironically, usually one of their last orders of the day as they get ready to close. It’s his last stop of the night: a peppermint tea as the morning crew mops the floor and takes chairs off the tables. It doesn’t take long before he knows the entire staff, the young college kids on the morning shift, the ladies who remind him of his mother taking over by the time close rolls around. They smile, and they know his name, and it’s the saddest thing in the world that they’re basically the closest thing Patrick has to friends. 

It’s the coffee shop people, and Tessa, and the handful of regular callers he gets now. There’s a guy named Ted who calls occasionally, when he’s within range of the station on his trips out to various ranches. He’s a vet with a pun problem, but he loves Yonder Mountain String Band and he makes Patrick laugh, so there’s really no harm. There’s also a woman named Ronnie who teaches at one of the nearby junior colleges and is always up late grading papers. She’s always calling and requesting Diana Ross or Toni Braxton or some other diva who is not in any way folk music but that Patrick always gives in to because — come on. It’s Diana Ross. 

And there’s David. David Rose, who goes from calling him every few weeks, to every few days, to at least once a day, usually shortly before Patrick leaves for the night. Patrick learns that’s when he’s closest to home, when he’s the most exhausted and the most willing to overrides his limited social programming to call and yell at Patrick. And it is always, always yelling. Or, more of that high pitched exasperation that  _ is  _ David Rose’s version of yelling, but he’s always got an opinion he’s more than happy to share with Patrick. Before long, Patrick is more than thrilled to hear them. 

It’s been a few weeks since he'd dedicated a song directly to David, and in that time he’s picked up a few more key details. David is a Christina fan; he does something with selling crafts, or makeup, or food, possibly all three; and he’s never found a cup of coffee on the road that’s made to his liking. This last one sticks because it precedes a hilarious-but-expletive filled rant on the relative distinctions between Kate Bush and Kate Nash, which Patrick is insanely glad he didn’t take to air. He let’s David rant, because it doesn't take long to learn that it’s best in these situations to let David run himself out, and when he finishes, he draws out the silence between them until David has to ask and make sure Patrick is still on the line. It’s his favorite way to needle David, mostly because it works like a charm.

“Are you still there?”

“Yep.”

“Then why don’t you say anything?!”

“It didn’t really seem like you needed me to.”

“Well, now that I’m done -”

“Oh, were you done?”

It’s always like that between them, the rapid fire and the gentle poking and the smiles he has to swallow down. It’s like a game, one they both take turns winning, and Patrick starts to look forward to playing. 

Which is only a problem when Patrick stops to think about the fact that the person he currently looks forward to speaking with most in the world is a disembodied voice on the end of the phone. He has no idea what David looks like, who David really is, outside the limited set of very specific musical opinions Patrick has become privy to. And the more Patrick thinks about it, the more lonely it makes him. The smaller it makes his world feel. He has always needed people to thrive, needed the casual touch and small noises that meant being surrounded by people you were comfortable with. His family, youth group, team sports, he’s surrounded himself with amicable sociality his entire life, until all those cosy comfortable walls closed in on him and he blew everything up.

He’s just getting ready to leave for the day when he hears a knock on the door frame and he looks up expecting to see Tessa, only to see his boss Ray standing in the door. Ray is the kind of guy who Patrick has never seen without a smile, but Patrick hasn’t seen him since his interview, and he’s guessing it can’t be a great thing for his boss to show up unannounced when he’s been fine with emailing up until now.

“Patrick, so glad I caught you.”

“Hey, Ray. So glad you caught me, too.” Patrick blushes and looks at the desk, wondering if there’s any way he can actually rewind time. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to come by and tell you that we got the numbers back on your first couple of months and you’re doing really, really great.”

“Yeah?” He probably shouldn’t sound so surprised when he says it, but he is surprised. He thinks he’s been doing okay, has been feeling more and more comfortable on the air, but he also knows there’s a world of difference between how you feel doing a thing and how good other people think you are at said thing.

“Yes! “What the Folk” is one of the most popular shows we’ve ever had in the time slot.” He neglects to remind Patrick that it’s the only show they’ve had in the time slot in the last six years. “And you’re already getting the kind of listener averages we see with Gwen and Jocelyn.” 

That gets Patrick’s attention, because Gwen and Jocelyn run the mid-morning easy listening and advice show, “The Jazzagals,” and it's one of the most popular at the station. “Seriously?”

“Yes, Patrick.” Ray’s smile doesn’t leave his face, but it does waver a bit, a certain  _ something  _ flitting behind his eyes as he stares at Patrick. “Perhaps work on sounding so surprised when you hear it.”

“Yeah, no, right. Sorry.” He sees the caller light blinking out of the corner of his eye, but he’s talking to Ray. “Thank you. For coming to tell me. It’s always good to get good feedback.”

“Of course!” Ray rocks back on his heels and tucks his thumbs into his pockets and is smiling, smiling, just staring and smiling at Patrick. It’s unnerving, and Patrick clears his throat.

“Was there something else?”

“Well, since you asked — I’ve been talking to the higher ups, and we were wondering if you would be interested in doing some remote hosting work for the station? Looking for some outreach, some partnerships. We’re hoping to feature more live acts in the coming year, and getting in good on the ground floor with some of the smaller spots could really come in handy. You used to play in a band around here, didn’t you?”

Patrick winces and tries to ignore the still-blinking call light. “Yeah. Yes. Used to be. I’m afraid I haven’t had much time for playing recently.”

“That’s understandable. But you do still have some of those connections, yes?” Patrick didn’t, but he had a hard time saying no to Ray’s mercenary enthusiasm. 

“Absolutely.”

“And you wouldn’t mind reaching out to some of them, see if maybe we could co-sponsor some shows, some local talent?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Perfect. Thank you, Patrick.” He’s out the door without another word, but pokes his head in at the last second and uses his chin to gesture at the computer. “You’re call light is blinking.”

Patrick just gapes after him, but the call has dropped by the time he goes to answer it.

*

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick, what musical mood are we creating tonight?” There’s just silence on the line, the rustling of a seatbelt and the distant rush of wind blowing by a car. “Hello?”

“You didn’t answer last night.” He recognizes the voice instantly, but he’s never heard David sound like this. He sounds far away, sounds small, sounds...sad. David Rose sounds sad and it makes the bottom fall out of Patrick’s stomach. He leans forward on the desk, bracing himself on his elbows. 

“I didn’t.”

“Isn’t it your job to, like, answer the phone? How has your boss not fired you yet?” It’s something he’d normally say, the kind of gentle tease Patrick expects, but he sounds defeated, sounds like he’s actually asking the question, and Patrick wants to physically recoil from the sound. 

“I was talking to my boss, actually. Last night. It’s why I didn’t get to your call in time.”

“Oh.” And then the silence is back, taking up the space between them and Patrick’s never felt like this on a call before, never felt like he was at a loss for words. Especially not where David Rose was concerned. Usually there were too many words, a litany of words from David, that Patrick had to find a way to put a stop to. Right now, he’d give anything to have the flood back in place of this drought of words, this absence of speaking.

“What do you need, David?” It’s not how he usually asks the question, and he hears a sharp little intake of breath on the other line.

“I um - I need - well not  _ need  _ but-” David starts speaking several times and Patrick waits. “I was hoping I could request a song.”

“Oh. Um.” It’s not something he’s ever done. Patrick is ready for a litany, ready for a commentary on his earlier medley of Dolly Parton covers. He’s not ready for the hesitant way that David asks, like he thinks Patrick won’t play him a song if he asks. Like he’s not used to asking for what he wants. “Absolutely. What can I play for you?”

“Do you have Beirut?”

Patrick is shocked; of all the bands in the world, Beirut was not the one he thought David Rose would be asking for. He spends so much time filling requests for recognizable, singable, perfectly decent songs that sometimes he almost forgets about bands like Beirut. “We’ve got everything.”

“”Nantes”?”

Patrick makes a surprised little sound; he tries to pass it off as a cough, but it ends up sounding more like a chuckle, and he immediately hears David start talking, a spill of words that means David is trying to cover up what he’s just said with a mountain of more words.

“No, or not, don’t worry about it, it’s not a good driving song anyway, you really don’t need to-” 

“David. Stop. It’s a good song. Just, wait-” Patrick puts David on hold and cues up his request. He switches his mic over so that he’s broadcasting and tries to keep his voice steady. “Coming up next, folks, by special request, a deep cut by a band that, honestly, we could stand to play a little more of. This is “Nantes” by the band Beirut.”

_ “I'll gamble away my fright/And I'll gamble away my time/And in a year, a year or so/This will slip into the sea” _

He listens to the song play a bit before he switches back to David.

“Thank you,” his voice breaks just a little and it sounds like maybe he’s crying, 

“Of course.” He should hang up the phone, give David his privacy in this moment. This is the end of the DJ/listener interaction, so he should end the call. Just - hang up the phone. “This is a sad song.”

“That is accurate.”

“It’s also a folk song. You hate folk songs.”

“I do not hate folk songs!” It’s the most animated he’s sounded on this call.

“Why did you ask me to play you a sad folk song, David?” He’s got no business asking, but he wants the answer so badly it’s a physical weight in his chest. That same silence stretches between them and Patrick realizes he’s never had a conversation with David that took place more in the stretches between words. 

David clears his throat before he speaks. “I have-had-an ex — a person who played it for me. Introduced me to this band.”

“That’s nice.”

The sound David makes is low and ugly, but he doesn’t say anything. Patrick wants to crack him open, to get him talking about this mysterious person who introduced David to wonderful, melancholy, poetic bands and then left him with that bitter, choked sound in the back of his throat. He wants to find the key, the magic word, to unleash the flood of words again. But every time he tries, they die on his tongue and he settles lamely for—

“Or not.”

“Not exactly.” David doesn’t elaborate.

“So it didn’t end well, then?” Patrick doesn’t know why he can’t keep his mouth shut. He’s only got ten minutes left on his shift, he should be wrapping it up, lining up tracks, giving his outro speech and lining things up for Tessa. But he can’t stop talking to David. He just. He can’t. 

“Mmm, no. No it didn’t. Let’s just say that the song stuck and he didn’t. Anyway, I had to...see him. Again. Last night.”

“Ah.” It doesn't escape his notice that David is using he/him pronouns, and that this means something. Enough of something that Patrick's heart is beating  _ way  _ too fast.

“For my mother,” David says quickly, like that explains things, although it doesn’t, it confuses Patrick more. “He was trying to take advantage of my mother. It’s a long story but. He doesn’t just get to do that to her.”

“Of course not.”

“So I had to. See him.” The way he says ‘see him’ makes something bitter tasting appear in the back of his throat. “And it was just as bad as you’d imagine. So the song is something of a reminder.”

“That time heals all wounds?”

“That I’ve got shitty taste in people.”

“David,” he says his name like an admonishment, but he doesn’t have a follow-up. The word hangs in the air. 

David sniffs; if he’s crying Patrick wants to set the whole world on fire. But when he speaks, his voice is even, and he sounds more like himself. “It’s fine. I have fantastic taste in sweaters.”

"That's good to know." Tessa pushes into the studio quietly, looking at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, pointedly looking at the clock over the desk. He’s supposed to have read her in two minutes ago, and he still hasn’t gotten off the phone. “Listen, I have to go. Like, literally have to. It’s the end of my shift. But — take care of yourself, okay? Get some sleep.”

“Doubtful. But I’m almost to the next town, and there’s a coffee shop there that makes not-awful coffee, so.”

Patrick chuckles and shakes his head. “Drive safe, David Rose.”

David hangs up without saying goodbye and the little click scratches at him the entire walk to his car. It was too abrupt, too final. The whole call had been so unlike any of the previous times he’s talked to David. It felt — it felt more like conversations he's had with his friends, with Rachel before they started dating, quiet conversations where they’d lie on the floor and listen to his parents’ records and tell their secrets to the ceiling. He’d been given the tiniest peek at a different David, at who David might be when he wasn’t calling to yell about female popstars from the 90s and the corporatization of indie music. Patrick wants to see more of that David, is thrown off-kilter by how just this little peek behind the curtain has made him hungry for more of David.

Patrick needs to get out. He needs a hobby, or a friend, or to get laid. But it's 4:30 in the morning, so he’'' have to settle for an actual hello from a human face at the café. He needs another voice to get David’s out of his head, to stop replaying that sad, small “thank you.” He can’t stop hearing it, and it’s distracting, the whole thing has been so distracting, that he accidentally body checks the guy coming out of the café at the same time he’s trying to go in. 

Patrick lets out an ‘oof’ and puts his hand on the guys shoulder to steady himself, so that they end up kind of crashing into the door instead of spiraling to the ground. Patrick is looking down, so the first thing he sees is a pair of black high-tops, pants that have leather patches and zippers that don’t seem to serve any particular function, a white sweater with giant blue flowers in Patrick’s favorite shade. He’s got the smallest five-o’clock-shadow and high cheekbones and jet black eyebrows and giant,  _ giant  _ round white sunglasses covering the rest of his face. 

Patrick knows he’s been looking too long, that they’ve been holding each other awkwardly for long enough that it should be uncomfortable, but. There’s just something about his face Patrick can’t take his eyes off of. He drops his arms though and opens his mouth to say something, to apologize or say “excuse me” or ask for the guy’s number, when the man’s hands fly through the air and he does this kind of nod-shake thing with his head that could be ‘it’s fine’ and could be ‘get out of my way’. Patrick takes a step back and the man gives him a little smile but keeps walking.

Patrick watches him walk away and hears “Nantes” again in the back of his mind:

_ “And in a year, a year or so/This will slip into the sea/Well it's been a long time, long time now/Since I've seen you smile” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to storieswelove for every bit of Beirut knowledge in this chapter


	4. the highway signs say we're close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This all would be nonsense without storieswelove.

“Caramel macchiato, skim, two sweeteners, and a sprinkle of cocoa powder,” the barista shouts his order and looks around like he’s not standing right in front of her, like he hasn’t been standing here watching her make his drink for the last several minutes. Luckily for her, he’s still feeling too out of sorts after his night with Sebastien, and his call with Patrick, to muster up much of an attitude. He grabs the drink from her hand a little more forcefully than he needs to, but he gives her half a smile and nods his head in a thank you. 

The table he sits at is small, tucked into a corner of the coffee shop that, even with the slower than average service, he’s thrilled he found. He loves the Café Tropical, but they’ve never been able to manage even a decent cup of black coffee, and he hasn’t ever held out hope for the gas stations he was likely find along the road. In fact, if Stevie hadn’t been so damn desperate to find a place place to pee that didn’t smell like diesel, they probably would’ve never pulled off at the little town when they were already so close to home. But they did, and David ordered his drink and didn’t hate it, and so it became part of his routine; he figured out that he could get to the town from pretty much any direction, assuming he was willing to go a little out of his way, and David had done way, way more for good coffee in the past. Plus, he missed having a place like this, a place that was filled with the gentle burr of grinding coffee, and the bitter smell of espresso, and utterly devoid of any people that he knows. Anyone who might want to ask him questions, or look him in the eye. 

David keeps his sunglasses on, even though it’s still pre-dawn outside, mostly because crying makes his eyes puff up like he has pink eye, and it always takes several hours for them to go down. He shouldn’t have called Patrick, and definitely shouldn’t have asked him to play that stupid song. David had been deep in his own feelings, looking to hurt himself, and he’d managed to do a bang-up job. The skin around his nose felt itchy and dry, and he had a tension headache at the temples, the two surest sign that he’s emotionally wrung-out. Patrick's right — he needs to sleep. 

But he can’t sleep. It’s a Tuesday, and a long day standing at the counter of Rose Apothecary stretches out before him. He stands with a groan and downs the dregs of his coffee, all caramel and sweetner by this point, and grimaces a little as he throws it away. 

He’s halfway out the café door when someone practically bowls him over, checking into David’s shoulder with enough force that they’re both sent sprawling sideways. The other man’s hands come up to his shoulder, ostensibly to avoid making the damage any worse, and David gets an eyeful of crisp Wranglers and a dark blue button down before he manages to stand back up. The guy is just staring at him with warm brown eyes half a size too big for his face. ‘Owlish’ is the word that comes to David’s mind. And he’s running his eyes all over David’s face, making him exceedingly glad he still had his sunglasses on. He can feel the blush rising to his cheeks, and the other guy is opening his mouth to say something, and David just can’t. He doesn’t have the energy. So he puts up his hands and schools his face into an expression that says ‘it’s fine, but let’s not’, and the other guy immediately steps back.

David nods and leaves, slow steps across the parking lot to his broken ass car and it’s stupid busted radio so he can head back to his exhausting drudge of a life. He really, really needs a nap. 

*

“Thank you for calling 94.1 CBC Radio, this is ‘What the Folk’, my name is Patrick, what’s your fancy?”

“Hey.”

“David! Hey.”

David breathes through his nose, slowly, trying to make his exhales longer than his inhales. It’s a trick a therapist taught him once, and he keeps trying it, hoping that it’ll work one day. He should hang up the phone. He wants to hang up the phone. If there’s one thing that’s worse than having human emotions, it’s unloading all those human emotions all over another person and then having to  _ apologize  _ for it. But, that ship has sailed, so he needs to suck it up and get it over with.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“For the other night. I shouldn’t — you don’t owe me anything.” It’s another thing a former therapist told him to say, told him it was important to acknowledge when he had unfair expectations of other people.

“I know that. What — what’re you talking about?”

“When I called the other night, I wasn’t in a good place. I shouldn’t have called you like that, shouldn’t have brought you in to that part of my life. It wasn’t a fair boundary to cross and I’m sorry.” It’s more self-aware than he’s maybe ever been, and Patrick’s silence on the other end of the line feels like a knife under his ribs.

“I’m glad you called,” Patrick’s voice is soft, like it’s a secret, and the knife in David’s side blooms into a delicious kind of heat. “Especially if I — if the song helped you. I’m glad.”

David bites down hard enough on the inside of his cheek that the smile he’s tamping down turns into a grimace. “Well. That’s very kind. But never fear. I’ve watched my romcoms, had my ice-cream, and we’ll return to our regularly scheduled bitch sessions immediately.”

Patrick laughs. “What made the screening list?”

“ _ How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days _ .  _ Notting Hill, _ twice.  _ Thirteen Going on Thirty _ three times.”

“You watched the same movie three times?”

“Not in a row.”

“And you give me shit for a power hour?”

“That’s different.  _ Thirteen Going on Thirty _ is a classic.”

“Ah, I see.”

"No, you obviously don’t. It’s Jennifer. Garner.” He’s doing that thing again, speaking in one-word sentences like Patrick is an Alien from planet No Pop Culture. 

“I’ve seen the movie, David.”

“You know, I made out with her once.” 

“Bullshit!” Patrick spits it out so fast it's clearly a gut reaction. “Jennifer Garner? In what timeline?”

“I’ll have you know, I used to live  _ quite  _ the glamourous life.”

“You know, I don’t doubt that for a second.”

“Good. Because it's true,” he whines defensively before his voice goes all dreamy, like it always does when he tells this story. Which he always does when the subject of Jennifer Garner, or  _ Thirteen Going on Thirty _ , or romcoms in general, comes up. “I went to the premiere, and the afterparty, and we — this was pre-Ben, of course, I’m not  _ that  _ trashy, but. She was there and we — it was the best night of my entire life.”

“The best night, huh?”

“Other than the time I saw Mariah Carey in concert and told her out loud that I loved her? Yes. Did you hear me? I  _ made out  _ with Jennifer Garner. The best night.”

“I’ll admit, I am a little jealous.” David chokes and makes a little ‘um’ sound because he knows he heard what Patrick said, but Patrick can’t mean what Patrick said. “She definitely has that certain something.” David exhales, because  _ duh.  _

“Oh, she certainly does.” He tries not to sound too lewd when he says it, but doesn’t entirely succeed. 

“Well. I’m glad you’re feeling better.” He sounds like he means it, and he hasn’t said anything else about that night or anything David said, so he feels like he can go forward pretending the whole thing never happened. Which is his absolute favorite coping mechanism.

“Did you want me to play you something, or…?”

“God no, and ruin this absolutely riveting Wilco marathon you seem intent on having? I would never.” He’s got his sarcasm back and it feels good in his mouth, feels good to be talking to Patrick this way. 

There’s a small, soft laugh before Patrick says, “Goodbye, David Rose.”

And this time, David makes sure to say good-bye back.

When he gets to the café he decides to order an extra coffee and settle in to do a little work. He’s roped Stevie into opening for him, because he’s got financial spreadsheets to battle and he  _ hates  _ financial spreadsheets. He’s cursing at the tiny little excel boxes when an older man walks up to his table and just sits down, uninvited. It turns out, it’s because his name is Roland, he’s the owner of the café, and apparently thinks that means he can do basically whatever he wants. Which annoys David, but annoys him less so when Roland notices what he’s working on and starts talking about artisanal roasts and the bespoke flavoring method he’s experimenting with. He doesn’t look or sound or act anything like the kind of person David pictures owning a coffee shop, but the more he talks, the more David realizes he knows what he’s talking about. He leaves with a new deal to think about, and the idea of putting Rose Apothecary into the black finally within his grasp. 

He passes the man with the owl eyes on his way out again, although this time they manage to avoid any bodily contact. He holds the door open for the man, who has a phone pressed to his ear and is making little ‘hmm’ sounds. He lifts his chin to David and his eyes spark with recognition, so David gives him a little smile as he slips by. By the time he’s stepping foot outside the café, though, his thoughts are back on Roland and the weekend and battling a new set of numbers. 

*

“Before I get out of here this fine Monday, folks, we’ve got one more tuned lined up for you. And I’ve got to say, this one is one of my absolute favorites. So taking us out today we’ve got “Piazza, New York Catcher” by Belle and Sebastian.”

David smiles and turns it up a little bit. He still wouldn’t say that he  _ likes  _ “What the Folk” by any stretch of the imagination, but he really does love this song. He’s liked Belle and Sebastian since Alexis had dragged him to an underground show where the corners had been dark and the E had been plentiful. He’d been a fan ever since. Humming along, he’s reminded just how much he likes this band, so much so that when he parks his car at the café half an hour later, he’s still thinking about it. So he pulls out his phone uses the café’s weak wi-fi to download the album, fishing an old pair of earbuds out of his bag and slips them into his ears. 

There are a few people in line at the counter, so he steps up behind a guy in a grey sweater and a knit cap and turns his attention to the bulletin board by the front door. It’s covered in flyers for local bands, essential oil MLMs, free yoga at the senior center. And right in the middle is a bright pink flyer with the café’s logo on the top advertising a job running social media and doing their community programming. It doesn’t sound like his thing, but something about the little Twitter icon reminds him of Alexis, so he pulls one of the copies off the thumbtack and folds it up, putting it in his pocket.

The person in front of him steps away, so David takes out one of his earbuds and smiles at the barista, a girl named Millie who is becoming familiar to David. She smiles when she sees him and says “Caramel Macchiato?” He nods and takes out his wallet. He’s two punches away from a free coffee. “Oh, that won’t be necessary today! The person in front of you paid it forward.”

David’s brow furrows and the voice behind the counter calls out, “peppermint tea!” Knit Cap sticks out his hand and takes it, heading for the doorway just as a mother corrals her two kids through the door. He holds it open and David can see in profile that it’s Mr. Owl Eyes. He wants to say something, wants to call out his name and say thank you, but David realizes he doesn’t know the man’s name, and then he’s gone and out the door and David is just standing there holding his wallet like an idiot. He goes ahead and does the decent thing, paying it forward for the person behind him, and he’s pretty sure he’s imagining it, but the coffee tastes better than it ever has before. 

*

“It’s that time again, listeners — I’m off. But fear not, save your tears, I wouldn’t leave you without one final jam. This is “Anyone Else but You” by The Moldy Peaches. Talk to you all tomorrow, and remember — it’s Tessa Tuesdays, so make sure you give our beloved jazz DJ a little extra love on social media today, yeah?.”

“Aw, David, this one is cute!” Alexis flips her hand at the radio and David nods distractedly. This song sounds so familiar, he can almost place it, but he’s also trying to think through what’s about to happen. He spent all last night convincing Alexis to come with him. He told her it’s a ‘creative consultation’ and he’s done his best to prep Roland for what his sister is like. And he’d never say it to her face because she’d make that little simpering noise and boop him on the nose, but — she could do this job. She’d be really, really good at this job, actually. He was in the final talks with Roland to secure a deal, so that the Apothecary would carry his newest line of flavored coffee roasts, and as soon as the dotted line was signed, David would officially be done fulfilling vendor contracts. His goal would be met and he could finally just  _ take a fucking breath. _ Getting Alexis a job of her own - and out from underneath his feet now that she was done at school - was just the icing on the cake. 

“So what exactly does this Redmond —” 

“Roland. His name is Roland.”

“That’s what I said, David. What does  _ Roland  _ have in mind for this little venture?”

“Well, it’s a social media manager position. I would imagine he expects you to manage his social media.”

“Okay but, like. Just his Twitter, or his Instagram? Does he have tik-tok, or…?”

“I don’t know! Why would I know?”

“You set this meeting up, David!”

“For you! I set this meeting up for you."

She makes a frustrated sound that’s half squawk, half shriek, and jerks down the visor mirror. She wipes away a non-existent lipstick smudge and huffs her shoulders a little, like she’s preparing to go into battle. When she looks at him again, she’s got a look in her eyes that David isn’t used to seeing and her mouth is set in a determined little line. “Let’s go.”

And miracle of miracles, she lands the job.

*

“That was “Cocktail and a Song” by The Highwomen — don’t you just love them? I wish I could say we had another one coming, friends, but I’m afraid it’s time to wrap up this party and I’ve got the perfect song to do it on. So until tomorrow, drive safe out there and let Barry Louis Polisar’s “All I Want is You” ease you into this beautiful Wednesday morning.” 

The bouncy voice fills the car and if David didn’t know - if Patrick hadn’t just said - that he was done for the day, he’d pick up the phone and call right now. He actually, unapologetically loves The Highwomen, and while he didn’t mind this song, the transition between the two was truly awful. He made a mental note to call him about it early in his shift tomorrow when he pulls into the café parking lot and sees Roland standing out front, leaning up against the side of the door. He perks up when he sees David’s car and starts walking across the parking lot before David’s even got the door closed.

“It’s done?”

“It’s done.” Roland’s got a huge grin on his face, and a bag of unlabeled coffee in his hand. He holds it out to David, who takes it gingerly. It feels weird to be doing this in the parking lot, so he starts walking back towards the building, Roland falling into step beside him. The stiff plastic crinkles in his hand and he shivers. He holds the bag up to his nose and breathes deeply. It smells like coffee, chocolate, and raspberry. It reminds David of the chocolate torte he had at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant for his fifteenth birthday, and he makes a truly ungodly noise in the back of his throat.

“I know, right?”

Roland holds the door open for him, and David quickly sits down at the first table he sees. He opens the bag gently and takes out a handful of beans. The smell is so strong with the bag open that David’s brain is half convinced he’s holding a Hershey bar. The beans are a dark brown, almost black in places, and while David isn’t a coffee expert by any stretch, he’s consumed enough of it in his adult life to know that he’s got something really delicious in his hands right now.

“And you’re still good with the contract terms we discussed?” He tries to keep his voice calm — it’s coffee, he’s not taking a hit out on someone, but he’s suddenly terrified this deal will fall apart, and that if this deal falls apart, they’ll all fall apart. David has never been so close to accomplishing a goal that felt so big, so impossible when he first started, and he’s terrified to actually be proud of himself for the first time, like, ever. 

“Oh absolutely. I gotta tell you, Dave, between our deal and you sister’s ability on the tweeter, we’re doing some booming business.” The café hasn’t looked any busier to David, but dawn isn’t exactly the middle of rush hour, so what did he know?

Roland reaches a hand across the table and David takes it, shakes it firmly, and only thinks about sanitizing his hand for, like, five seconds. Ten, max. 

*

“Time for that last song again, listeners, if you can believe it. As always, I’ve had such a pleasure getting to play music for you fine folks today. Just a quick reminder that I’ll be out of the studio tomorrow, so I won’t actually be chatting with you all again until Monday. Enjoy your weekend, and in the meantime, here’s “I’m Sticking With You” by The Velvet Underground.”

_ That motherfucker _ , David thinks, scoffing to himself. He pulls the sunglasses off his face and just stares at his radio as the song plays. It’s not a folk song. It’s not anything in the Venn diagram of folk songs! And David knows exactly what is happening, but he can’t do a goddamn thing about it until Monday, because Patrick won’t be there, and of course he doesn’t have any number but the station’s number, why would he? 

Which means David has no outlet for the irritation bubbling just underneath his skin, the kind that makes him feel twitchy and over-exposed. He slams his car door and mutters “what an asshole” to himself again as he pulls open the door to the café. 

“Oh my God, David!”

“Alexis! What are you doing here?!"

“I picked her up!” Roland comes out of the back, wiping his hands on his pants, and David sees Alexis shudder and smile, pained.

“Yep. Roland and I thought it would be a good idea to get a jump on next weekend, and apparently he’s book next week with physical therapy.”

“Pfft. Not so fancy. It’s massage week! And if the wife and I don’t get in next week, it’s going to be like six more months before they’ve got another opening.”

“I’m sorry. What’s happening next weekend?” David’s hoping against hope that if he can pretend he didn’t hear far too much about Roland’s personal plans, he’ll actually be able to look him in the eye again in the future.

“We’re having an open mic!”

Roland’s so excited, David pulls back on his initial revulsion and lands somewhere closer to suspicious. “Oh yeah?”

“Well, the café has that little stage in the back, and if we charge a cover at the door we can serve wine. Rose Apothecary Rosé, actually, alongside the new coffee blends.” Alexis says the only thing that could possibly make the idea of an open mic night palatable to David, and he nods begrudgingly.

“I guess that would be good for the store.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she says with a smug little smile, and David has to admit that it’s a good idea. 

“So who’s going to host this charming little sing along?”

“Duh, David.” She gestures down her body. “I’m thinking about doing “A Little Bit Alexis”.”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“Come on, David, how hard can it be to find a smoke machine to rent?”

He puts his head in his hands and groans. She snorts, and when he looks at her again, she rolls her eyes. “Please. Like anyone here would appreciate it, anyway.”

She’s right, but he keeps his mouth shut as she walks away, talking to him over her shoulder, and he begins the silent countdown to this godforsaken event.

*

“I cannot believe you are  _ trolling me  _ with the  _ Juno _ soundtrack!”

“Hello, David. Nice weekend?”

He sounds so calm that, for a second, David thinks he spent the whole weekend imagining it, wracking his brain for where he recognized all those songs from. But then he hears it, just a little something in the way Patrick asks, and David knows — he didn’t make it up. “You did, didn’t you? You spent all last week trolling me with the fucking  _ Juno _ soundtrack.”

“I’m kind of surprised it took you all four songs to figure it out. I thought you were a huge Jennifer Garner fan.”

David sputters. “She’s got, like, such a minor role in that movie!”

Patrick ‘tsks’. “Come on, David, there are no small parts. Only small actors, and the fans who allegedly make out with them.”

“How  _ dare  _ you. Allegedly?! am — I won’t have you — I figured it out, didn’t I?!” David feels like the connection between his brain and his mouth is filled with concrete. “The Velvet Underground was a pretty big tip-off.”

“Obviously. Not even remotely folk music. Not even in the same Venn diagram.”

“Won’t you, like, get in trouble? For playing music that isn’t folk music? I kind of thought that was the whole deal, or why I have I been calling you all this time?”

“Aw, and here I just thought you liked our witty repartee.”

“I — answer the question.”

“No, I won’t get fired. Turns out most people who aren’t you actually like my show quite a bit.”

"Most people who are awake and listening to Canadian public radio between the hours of midnight and dawn?”

“Fair enough.” There’s laughter in his voice; it makes David’s cheeks feel hot. “But of  _ those  _ people? I’m pretty beloved.”

“Oh, beloved now are we?”

“Yes, David. We are.” And yeah, David can see that. He can see people loving Patrick. He loves Patrick. In that platonic, voice-in-your-car kind of way. He’s grown fond of the chipper DJ and his relentless dedication to his show. And fond is not a feeling David knows how to process; it makes his throat feel tight and his tongue feel heavy in his mouth.

“Well. The jig is up on your little prank.”

“Completely worth it.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you smiling?”

“No.” He absolutely is. 

“Completely worth it. Was there something else you needed?”

“Yes, I have a request - do you have Lily Allen’s “Fuck You”?”

Patrick laughs out loud, bright and clear in David’s ear, and it takes him a few seconds to get himself back under control. “We do, believe it or not, but  _ that _ is a song that will get me fired.”

“Perfect.”

“Nah. You’d miss me, David Rose.”

The truth of it catches him off guard. His brain races for something to say, something sassy, anything prickly that will push them back on their normal track and away from this...this...dangerously sincere conversation.

“Well. We’d just have to see, wouldn’t we.” His voice is tight and sounds strained, even to his own ears.

“Mmm. Goodbye, David. Drive safe.”

“Goodbye, Patrick.”

The line goes dead, but David keeps the phone pressed to his ear for a few more seconds before he pulls his keys from the ignition and makes his way into the café.


	5. you're gonna bleed somebody's brand new love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, storieswelove has made this chapter -- and this fic -- infinitely better.
> 
> And don't forget you, too, can [listen along to What the Folk](https://open.spotify.com/user/124602004/playlist/2DBZQbygq31wPSbyajEQKC?si=WHCSITE5QniiGOGCCA7AIQ)

Patrick Brewer isn’t really the sort of person who believes in coincidences. He’s always been more of a “make your own luck” kind of guy. But that doesn’t stop a little thrill from travelling up his spine every time he sees Sweater Guy at the coffee shop. He’s not sure what else to call him, but he remembers the big blue flowers, and the lightning bolt, and the black-on-black stripes where one of the stripes is this yarn that looks fuzzy, soft, like it’d feel great under Patrick’s fingertips. Luckily, he’s standing in front of Sweater Guy today, so he’s spared the embarrassment of touching another human being’s sweater without knowing their name. 

He pulls the brim of his hat a little lower and leans forward, telling Millie he wants his usual peppermint tea, and also to pay for the person behind him. She beams at him, which is her face’s resting position, and says she’d be happy to take care of it. He says thank you and winks at her, just for fun, just because he knows he can be charming and he’s starting to feel more and more like some part of him that died off when Rachel left is slowly coming back to life. His tea is done faster than normal, and he’s just slipping past a group of noisy kids and their harrowed looking mom when Sweater Guy’s head swivels in Patrick’s direction. He keeps his eyes on the parking lot, but doesn’t try and hide the smile that creeps onto his face.

It’s Monday when he sees the flyer, a hand-lettered number advertising the coffee shop’s new open mic night, first time ever, this Friday at 7:00. There’s a Twitter handle he’s never seen before, and an Instagram account he knows with all his heart that Roland isn’t running himself. He’s only met the owner twice, but he’d only needed the first meeting to know he was a bit...eccentric. He snags a flyer and folds it up, sliding it into the inside pocket of his denim jacket as he decides to get really and order a chai tea, instead. He probably doesn’t need the extra caffeine if he wants to get to sleep any time soon, but the flyer for the open mic has him thinking, and he’s got that familiar feeling of a plan, just taking shape, just out of reach.

*

“Hey, Ray, you got a second?” It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and for all intents and purposes, Patrick should still be at home asleep. But he’s been having a hard time catching Ray, and it’s already Wednesday, so if he’s going to make this happen, it needs to be fast.

“Absolutely, Patrick. What can I do for you?”

“You remember asking me to use some of my local connections to find growth opportunities for the station?”

“I do.”

“I think I may have something.” 

He walks Ray through what he’s thinking, about approaching Roland and the café to set up some kind of sponsorship for the open mic night. He starts small, talking about being able to post flyers and do a few remote broadcasts to start, but then his enthusiasm gets the best of him and Ray nods along as he talks about potential contest opportunities, and talent workshops, and— 

“I can see you’ve given this quite a bit of thought, Patrick,” Ray says, holding up his hand and smiling gently. Patrick snaps his mouth shut, getting the hint pretty quickly that it’d probably be better for him to go ahead and stop talking. “And while I don’t think we should get ahead of ourselves, I do like the potential this opportunity opens up for us. The open mic is this Friday?”

“Day after tomorrow. At 7:00.”

“So you’ll need to be there by...5:30 to set up and do a sound check and all of that?”

Patrick swallows heavily. “You want me to perform?”

“I do think it would make quite a splash if one of the station’s newest up and coming DJs did a little number at the inaugural event, don’t you?”

“Ray, I don’t…”

“Obviously you don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, but…” Ray’s voice trails off and he continues to smile aggressively at Patrick. Patrick swallows audibly and opens his mouth to say no when the word that comes out is:

“Sure.” Ray claps his hands together and stands up from his desk, walking around to shake Patrick’s hand.

“Wonderful! You know, this is really something, Patrick. This could be the start of something really special.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it could.” A little balloon of hope settles under Patrick’s collarbone and it hurts in a way he’s missed, just a little bit. 

*

“You know what, listeners, you’ve all been so good for indulging me in today’s decidedly not-folk power hour. I can’t tell you how excited I am for some things we’ve got coming down the pipeline. I can’t get too specific yet, but if you’re in the area of the Chez Roland café this Friday at 7:00pm, swing and by and, uh, see who you see. Until then, folks, please enjoy the last — but certainly not least — installment in this week’s Tina Turner Power Hour.”

He presses play on “The Best” and sits back in his chair, folding his hands behind his neck and spreading his elbows wide. He takes a deep breath and sinks into the song for a minute. It’s always been one of his favorites, especially when the song slows down by half a beat and Tina belts

_ “Each time you leave me I start losing control/you’re walking away with my heart and my soul/I can feel you even when I’m alone/oh baby, don’t let go”  _

And the then trumpets blare and even alone in the studio he’s laughing to himself and pumping his arms above his head and he’s still got a dorky grin plastered on his face when the call light pops on.

“YOU’RE PLAYING TINA?!” 

Patrick doesn’t even get the chance to spit out his normal introduction, David’s voice is blaring through his phone, and there’s this horrible feedback loop because David is blasting his radio but he’s got such joy in his voice and Patrick can feel the electricity of the music still coursing through his body so he just yells at David to turn down his radio until the horrible delay goes away and he can hear David’s voice again.

"Hello, David."

“I  _ love _ this song.” David says it with his whole chest. “Why - how are you playing Tina Turner right now?”

“Didn’t you listen today? It’s been Tina Turner Power Hour.”

“No, I just got to a radio. Are you serious right now?” David sounds legitimately crestfallen, and even though Patrick is still smiling, he doesn’t like the way David’s voice changes when he gets disappointed. “I missed it? You’ll just have to do a repeat tomorrow.”

“No can do, my friend. Kind of a one-time deal. For a while, at least.”

“Of all days for overtime,” David grumbles and then goes quiet. Patrick sits there and listens to the silence on the line, notices how much more comfortable it is than the last time they were talking without saying anything. There’s been a shift there, and it’s one that Patrick wants to reach out and take hold of, turn around in the light until he knows exactly what it is that’s different. He thinks he’s almost got it, almost got the right words to articulate it, when David speaks again. “It’s such a romantic song, isn’t it? I feel like no one ever really  _ listens  _ to it under all the trumpets and bass line and  _ Tina  _ of it all.”

“It’s definitely a sweet-”

“-not sweet. Epic. It’s about the  _ best _ . The single best person for you, better than every other person, about how when they’re not around, you miss them, like it’s a piece of yourself that’s gone. It’s about another person setting you on fire and giving you...everything.”

David’s never talked to him like this before, and when Patrick manages to get words out they’re strangled, almost a whisper. “That sounds like a lot.”

“Not from the right person.”

Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that. He wants to say too many things to that. It strikes him that he’s never had a right person, that nothing David just said would ever have applied to Rachel on their best days, and he wants to know if David has ever had a right person like that, but he doesn’t know how to ask that question. He clears his throat and licks his lips. “Have you ever had — I mean, it’s not easy to find a person like that.”

“No. It’s not.”

“I’ve never. Either. Found a person like that.”

“Well. It’s not easy.” There’s a kindness in his voice that cracks something open in Patrick. “But then again I don’t really  _ do  _ feelings.”

“Except Mariah.”

“Except Mariah.”

“There has to have been  _ someone _ .” Patrick’s hands cover his face. He can’t be looking at the computer screen while he has this conversation with David. He can’t be having this conversation with David. He has no idea why he’s pushing this. “Someone better than Beirut guy.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that Beirut guy was kind of best of the bunch?”

“Unfortunately, David, I kind of would. That’s alright. Just means there’s some lucky guy out there still.” Patrick must have had some kind of stroke or something because he’s talking, he knows his mouth is moving, he can even feel his brain processing the words before he says them, but somehow all his fail-safes have gone permanently offline. David makes this  _ noise  _ in the back of his throat, like he’s swallowing down shock but can’t quite get it all.

“Yeah, well. For you, too.” David’s reply sounds weak and stilted and Patrick hates it. He waves his hand through the air even though David can’t see him.

“Definitely, of course, never know who you might run into.” David snorts a laugh, and Patrick latches onto it like a lifeline. “What?”

“Nothing, just. Your phrasing. There’s this cute guy I keep literally running into at one of my vendors and it. It was just funny.”

Patrick’s vision swims with sweaters and dark eyebrows and his heart stutters because somewhere out there David has his own version of Sweater Guy, and why shouldn’t he? He doesn’t — they don’t — nothing about this conversation is productive anymore, and Patrick doesn’t want to be having it. 

“Yeah, absolutely. That’s me, Mr. Funny Guy, it’s my middle name in fact, Patrick Funny Guy Brewer.” He’s babbling. “But you know what, I just saw the time and Tessa is giving me the absolute stink eye so I really better hop off. Drive safe — goodbye, David Rose.”

And it’s his turn to hang up the phone before David can say anything. He grabs his stuff and rushes out of the studio, avoiding Tessa’s eyes when they pass in the vestibule. He tosses his bag into the passenger seat and grips the top of his steering wheel, knocking his head into his knuckles until he’s got a red spot in the middle of his forehead. He lets his head fall heavy against the back of his seat and lets out a groan, and even after all of that he doesn’t feel any better. 

He has no idea what just happened in that studio. It felt like he and David had been having one very general, but also very specific, conversation, but there was both so much they aren’t saying — Patrick can’t do this anymore. He throws his car into gear and pulls quickly onto the road. He feels frustrated, and tired, and the exact opposite of the way he had when he’d finished talking to Ray and Roland. And it’s ridiculous that he’s getting all spun up about someone he’s never met. 

Because the truth was that, as much as he enjoyed David’s company, as much as he looked forward to his calls, for as fun it was to banter with someone whose wit was so damn sharp — he doesn’t know David Rose. He’d thought about Googling him, once, but there was a line between fascination and stalking and the more Patrick got to know David Rose, radio caller, the less he wanted to know about David Rose, former tabloid darling. He tried to imagine what someone might think of him if they could Google Alerts his history, if they saw headlines about his failed relationship and his career indecision and all the speculations about who he was or wasn’t when the world wasn’t looking. 

Patrick had wanted to respect his privacy, and now he’s stuck. He doesn’t know anything about David’s childhood, or what his favorite color is, or if he’s afraid of something silly like moths or socks on the wrong feet. He knows Tina, and shitty ex-boyfriends, and make-out sessions with Jennifer Garner. And sure, that’s more than he’s known about some people in his social circles before, but it’s not enough to  _ be  _ anything. Not anything Patrick should be trying to build a life on. And that’s what he needs to be doing. He’s been hibernating since Rachel left, and he’s built this new, safe little space for himself at the station, but it’s not a life. And Patrick needs a life.

He pulls off for the café, and spends a few more minutes just sitting in his car in the parking lot, taking deep breaths through his nose and making himself list all the things he can feel with his senses in that moment. It helps get his racing mind under control. He orders an herbal tea that’s too hot to drink safely, but that he sips immediately anyway, hissing. He’s half-way across the café before he remembers that he still needs to sign up for the performance part of his little open mic project. When he’d tried with Roland, he’d been brushed off and told to talk to Alexis.

He asks one of the teens behind the counter where he might find said Alexis, and when he gestures toward the stairwell to the basement, calling out her name at the same time, Patrick turns to say thanks as his feet start moving. 

Afterward, he feels like he should’ve seen it coming somehow. Because the minute his head turns, Sweater Guy comes up the same stairwell Patrick is headed towards, and he smacks into him, paper cup still clenched in his fist as it smashes between them. The light brown liquid immediately cascades out of the cup, and Patrick pulls his hand back on instinct. The tea splashes up and catches his fingertips, which stings, but not nearly as badly as watching the liquid spread across the front of the white shirt, soaking into the WILD ALOOF REBEL screen-printed across the front. Sweater Guy lets out a groan that could be frustration and could be pain but is definitely pissed, and he immediately turns and runs down the stairs. 

Patrick hesitates, wanting to chase after him, but he’s terrified he’s just going to make it worse, somehow, and at this point he’s unsuspectingly assaulted this guy twice. Once more and he thinks it might be a felony. But he’s Marcy Brewer’s son, so he can’t not say  _ something _ . He asks Millie for a post-it and pen, and is almost done scribbling an apology when he hears David’s voice in his head _ — “there is this guy at one of my vendors”  _ And if David has a Vendor Guy, maybe Patrick can have a Sweater Guy. So at the end of his apology, where he was going to write his name, he writes “maybe it’s time to bump into each other on purpose, open mic tomorrow @ 7” instead. 

He’s trying to squeeze his name onto the edge when he hears Millie chirp, “Alexis!” and he shoves the entire thing back across the counter to her.

“Will you make sure he - the guy with the tea and the sweater - make sure he gets that?” He doesn’t wait for Millie to answer, scanning the small crowd in the café for the woman he’s looking for so he can get hell out of there before he has to see Sweater Guy, all soggy and herbal-smelling, before he has to watch him read Patrick’s stupid note.

“Alexis?” 

The woman who spins to face him has a beautiful smile. Her cheekbones are high and her eyes sparkle. She’s stunning, and she leans into Patrick’s space when she says hello in a way that is aggressively flirty. He smiles at her, but notices that his stomach stays still, and no electricity pops up under his skin. He shakes her hand and introduces himself, and doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows shoot up. Something in her gaze goes predatory and he swears he hears the words “owl eyes” slip out under her breath before she says loudly, “You’re Patrick Brewer?”

“Yeah - Roland told you about me, then?” He’d spoken to the owner at length yesterday, after he’d gotten the go-ahead from Ray. He’d been surprised how quickly Roland had been on board with the idea, but he certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Oh, yeah. Yes. Yep. Roland. Roland told me. So you’re the mysterious radio DJ.” 

There’s an accusatory tone to her voice, and Patrick doesn’t really know what he’s done to be called ‘mysterious’, but it’s been such a weird day already he lets it go. “Yeah. Thank you so much, again, for working with us on sponsoring the event. We’re hoping to make it kind of a permanent thing, if it goes well.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” she reaches out an boops him on the nose, and it startles him. He laughs, which makes her laugh harder, and they’re dangerously close to getting caught up in the kind of laugh cycle that ends up hurting underneath the rib cage, when a deeply frustrated groan echoes up from the stairwell behind them. Alexis looks over her shoulder, her brown wrinkling a little in concern. Patrick’s eyebrows raise in a silent question.

“My brother. He’s...having a bit of a day.” There’s something in the way she says it, like she’s being deliberately vague. 

“Your brother? The guy who-”

“-you soaked in your tea? That’s the one.”

Patrick sucks air through his teeth and rubs the back of his neck. He looks at the floor, embarrassed. “Sorry about that.” 

She shrugs. “He’s got, like, a million sweaters.” There’s a crash at the bottom of the stairs, and it sounds like metal bowls hitting the floor and Alexis grimaces, looking at Patrick again. “Maybe I should-”

“No, absolutely. Just. Put me down for a number on Friday?”

“For sure. What will you be playing?”

Patrick opens his mouth to answer but shuts it with a shrug. “Can I let you know tomorrow?”

“Sure thing. Hey Millie? Get Patrick another tea, yeah?”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“It’s, like, really no big deal,” and she winks at him and does a little flick thing with her hand and then she’s gone, back down the stairs and Millie is sliding a fresh cup of tea across the counter to him. 

*

It’s three in the morning when Patrick wakes up with a start, his heart racing, his fingers itching. He pulls his guitar out of the closet and tunes it as quickly as he can for as poor shape as it’s in. He’d spent the whole evening trying to think of something to play, plucking away on the piano, humming his way through old band melodies and pop standards he could bust out with no problem and relatively little practice.

Too bad he hated the sound of all of it. Every song he played sounded wrong. Hollow. Flat. He was pitchy, or flubbed the lyrics, and nothing felt good. Until this.

This felt good. This small, strange new melody that is a song he knows in a way he’s never heard it before. And that?  _ That  _ is the thing he needs. So even though he doesn’t feel as good on the guitar, always feels more vulnerable without the solidity of a piano to hide behind, he plucks out the tune, finds the harmony and the chords and the new rhythm that go along with the words he’s known forever. 

He doesn’t finish until well past sun up, but when he does, he thinks it might just be perfect. 


	6. keep your head up, keep your love

“Tell me again why I’m helping you do this?”

“Um, because I’m your sister, David.”

“That’s not my fault,” David grunts as he sets yet another case of wine on the café’s cement basement floor. He stands up and puts both hands at his lower back, leaning into the space behind him as his spine pops in several places. He’s almost done carrying the Rose Apothecary product into the building, which is the extent of his promised involvement with this entire open mic night scheme. And while David Rose had a general personal rule against manual labor, his sister did have a point in that she had always been his one begrudging weak spot. Of course, she can’t  _ know  _ that. “I explicitly asked mom and dad for a brother. I even remember demanding a refund when they brought you home.”

She scrunches up her nose at him and flips him the bird and he shrugs and can’t quite keep the corner of his mouth from flipping up. “Okay, so are you almost done, or?”

And just like that irritation scrapes along the nerves in his shoulders and he glares at her a little. “Yes. And you’re welcome.”

“Thank you  _ so  _ much for letting me put your signage and product all over this event, which is generating quite a bit of social media buzz and promising to earn you a more than decent return on your investment.”

“I hope Roland drops your speakers,” he hisses as he brushes past her and up the stairs to grab the last box of rosé.

Her affronted gasp and injured, “David!” follow him up the stairs and satisfaction curls warm in the bottom of his belly. 

He unloads the final case, and then helps to move them all  _ again  _ when it comes to light that Alexis conveniently neglected to mention that the giant metal door he’d stacked them in front of was actually the walk-in refrigerator that the café needed, like, regular access to. He’s just finishing dragging the last case across the room when his phone vibrates in his pocket. It’s a text from Stevie, asking him about plans for the night. He sends her a list of possible movies to watch stoned and then notices the time. A hissed little “fuck” pushes through his teeth and he scrambles to the small utility sink in the corner, where he’d noticed a beat up old radio tucked earlier in the evening. 

It takes him a second to remember how radio dials actually, like, work, and then he’s not entirely sure he’s got the right station because when he spins to the numbers he knows are Patrick’s, all he hears is Tina Turner. He whips his phone out of his pocket as the richness of her voice bounces off the cold bare walls around him:

_ In your heart I see the start of every night and every day/In your eyes I get lost, I get washed away/Just as long here in your arms I could be in no better place/You're simply the best, better than all the rest _

His fingers are doing this weird fumbling thing and he misdials the number twice before it finally clicks through. He doesn’t even wait for Patrick to say anything before he’s yelling, “YOU’RE PLAYING TINA?!” 

"Hello, David."

“I  _ love _ this song.” David lets the word slip out before he can stop himself, because it’s true, he  _ does  _ love this song, and there’s no logical reason for Patrick to be playing it. “Why - how are you playing Tina Turner right now?”

“Didn’t you listen today? It’s been Tina Turner Power Hour.”

“No, I just got to a radio.” He curses Alexis — it’s her fault he’s not in his car, when he’d normally be listening to Patrick without a second thought. Instead, he’s been hauling and then rehauling wine crates. Like an  _ employee.  _ “Are you serious right now? I missed it?” He tries to keep the whine out of voice, to bite back just how disappointed it is. It’s stupid, that he feels so bad for forgetting to listen to Patrick’s show, like it’s the first time he’s been able to choose Patrick and he forgot and now Patrick’s going to know. Stupid. He forces a smile into his voice. “You’ll just have to do a repeat tomorrow.”

“No can do, my friend. Kind of a one-time deal. For a while, at least.”

“Of all days for overtime,” David starts to grumble, but then he gets distracted by the song and goes quiet. He doesn’t want to grumble at Patrick. Not really. He wants to listen to Tina, singing about finding a person who gets under your skin and lights you up and brings you home and builds you dreams. And he’s told so many people about how much he loves this song — tells anyone who will listen, any time he hears it, basically — but now he gets to tell Patrick. Patrick, who plays folk music and movie soundtracks just to troll him and has no reason to be playing this song, but is. “It’s such a romantic song, isn’t it? I feel like no one ever really  _ listens  _ to it under all the trumpets and bass line and  _ Tina  _ of it all.”

“It’s definitely a sweet-”

“-not sweet. Epic.” David knows it’s not polite not to interrupt, but he’s never been good at being polite, especially not about his opinions. “It’s about the  _ best _ . The single best person for you, better than every other person, about how when they’re not around, you miss them, like it’s a piece of yourself that’s gone. It’s about another person setting you on fire and giving you...everything.” David’s brain catches up with his mouth and he presses his lips together. When Patrick speaks, his voice is rough and reminds David of the ocean, wind-battered coastlines and sad infinities.

“That sounds like a lot.”

“Not from the right person.” David doesn’t know much about emotions, or how they work, but he’s had enough bad experiences to know that the good ones don’t feel like that.

“Have you ever had — I mean, it’s not easy to find a person like that.” 

David’s head is swimming and he leans back against the wall in the small space between the utility sink and the door to the walk-in. He should be concerned about his sweaters; he’s concerned about keeping his knees working. “No. It’s not.”

“I’ve never. Either. Found a person like that.”

“Well. It’s not easy.” David hears the kindness in his own voice and it cuts him. He wants to think that he’s grown, that he’s changed, even in the short amount of time since his...relapse with Sebatien. But his skin feels raw and it’s too much and he pulls back because he’s afraid. Because he knows himself and knows he’s terrified. “But then again I don’t really  _ do  _ feelings.”

“Except Mariah.”

David smiles through the weird little leaking his eyes are doing and manages to keep his voice level. “Except Mariah.”

“There has to have been  _ someone _ .” David’s other hand covers his face and he can’t breathe, can’t swallow, his body frozen while his mind feels like it’s come completely unmoored. He’s never had another human ask him questions about...anything like this. Not anybody who wasn’t his sister, or paid several hundred dollars an hour to ask. David wants to laugh, low and ugly, but doesn’t want to give that to Patrick, doesn’t want to bring something ugly into this conversation they’re somehow having. “Someone better than Beirut guy.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that Beirut guy was kind of best of the bunch?” Shitting on Sebastien was always easy enough, and put him back on firmer ground. 

“Unfortunately, David, I kind of would. That’s alright. Just means there’s some lucky guy out there still.”

David does make a noise then, a strangled, surprised little sound because he could be oblivious on the best of days but no way in hell had he missed Patrick’s little Freudian slip. And it’s Patrick’s voice he hears but it’s Mr. Owl Eyes’ face he sees, which catches him off guard, so his reply gets stuck in his throat. “Yeah, well. For you, too.” 

“Definitely, of course, never know who you might run into.” 

And it’s too perfect, Patrick’s accidental turn of phrase and the huge, soft brown eyes David’s seen half-a-dozen times now, always kind and usually sparkling and frequently too big for his face, that he can’t get out of his mind. David laughs, an incredulous little thing, one he wishes he could swallow back the minute Patrick’s reply comes, sharp and quick.

“What?”

“Nothing, just. Your phrasing. There’s this cute guy I keep literally running into at one of my vendors and it. It was just funny.” David hadn’t meant to call him cute. Not because Mr. Owl Eyes wasn’t cute, but because he felt Some Kind of Way about calling him cute to Patrick.

Alexis calls his name and it startles him. He bumps into the sink, sending the radio off it’s little shelf and into the basin, and the noise brings Alexis around the corner. She glares at him but has the decency to mouth “what are you doing?!” instead of screeching at him. He points to the phone, which is pressed firmly to his ear.

“Yeah, absolutely. That’s me, Mr. Funny Guy, it’s my middle name in fact, Patrick Funny Guy Brewer.” He’s babbling. “But you know what, I just saw the time and Tessa is giving me the absolute stink eye so I really better hop off. Drive safe — goodbye, David Rose.”

Patrick hangs up and David lets his phone fall away from his face. He stares at the screen until it goes black, Patrick’s number disappearing, and Alexis clears her throat pointedly. 

“Who was that?”

“No one,” David says, pushing off the wall and trying to slip past her. He feels rattled by his conversation with Patrick, his body exhausted from the manual labor while his mind races to fill in gaps in the things they hadn’t said. Alexis moves to block him, and he throws up his hands like she’s a linebacker, not a pencil of a woman. “What?!”

“It’s, like, super unprofessional of you to dodge work to call your crush, David.”

“First of all, who taught you the word unprofessional? Secondly, what are you talking about?”

She looks at him for a second before she rolls her eyes. “You really need to learn that Stevie hates retail and will do almost anything to fill her time. Including talk to me.”

David’s eyes go wide and then narrow into slits. “What did she say to you?”

“Nothing, David. Just that you’ve been expanding your musical horizons lately.” She bites the inside of her cheek and waggles her eyebrows in an expression that looks like it was ripped straight off David’s face, and heat floods his cheeks. He wiggles past her in a way that’s way less than dignified and grabs a pile of papers from the top of the last case of wine. He lets his eyes trail over columns of numbers, a list of products he’s providing for the open mic, potential profit projections, a bunch of nonsense he’s looked at a hundred times and isn’t seeing right now, anyway. He just needs to not be looking at his sister, before she does that creepy thing where she looks into his eyes and somehow just  _ knows  _ what he’s thinking. He hates when she does that. 

“David.” She says his name sincerely, and there’s no edge on it, which would be weird enough, but when he finally tears his gaze away from the print-outs, she’s looking at him with this little pout-smile that might just be sympathy, and that simply isn’t acceptable.

“You’re being ridiculous. He’s a radio DJ. He’s — it’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing. I would know David, you sound like Adam Levine did that time he told me he had to stay with Jessica for the publicity.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You just sound sad, okay. And, like, something that’s ‘nothing’ doesn’t usually make you go all,” she crumples her face into an ugly fake cry.

“Okay, Alexis, that’s very sweet. But really. I’m fine, this is nothing, and I’m going home to enjoy my night off.”

Her eyes sparkle in a way he doesn’t like and she opens her mouth to say something he’s sure he doesn’t want to hear, so he doesn’t. He presses his hand to her mouth and makes a little “uhuhuhh” sound and shakes his head, and then he ducks around her, taking the steps as quickly as he can, already picturing the long shower and ridiculously soft sweatpants he’s got waiting for him at home, his first glorious night off in—

— he’s not even officially through the door all the way before his chest and stomach and collarbone are all on fire and he can smell chamomile and lavender and a trace of honey and he doesn’t even have to look to know, to just  _ know,  _ that it’s Mr. Owl Eyes. Again.

And sure enough, there he is, crumpled cardboard cup in his hand, looking at David like he wants to sink into the Earth. Which is the literal least he can do. David’s eyes take in bits of information his brain won’t sort through until later, pink fingertips that match pink ears and ruddy cheeks, full lips bitten back in apology, sturdy hands that wander towards David and then away, like he wants to help but doesn’t know how. 

David groans in frustration and turns, headed immediately for the utility sink. The longer he lets the tea soak in, the less likely it is that he’s ever going to be able to salvage one of his favorite non-sweater looks. And it’s stupid, it’s so stupid, but his body hurts and his thoughts won’t hold still and he’s damp and smells like soggy flowers and he’s crying into the work sink while his sister watches and he scrubs at his shirt with soggy paper towels. He’s crying, and it’s not a quiet cry, and his sobs are breaking into laughter and he feels like he’s hovering six inches outside his body.

Alexis puts a hand on his shoulder and it’s shaking, his shoulder, not her hand, he’s pretty sure, and he sniffs and wipes at his eyes and tries to keep his voice steady when he says, “Mr. Owl Eyes strikes again.” He thinks he does a pretty good job, considering his voice doesn’t break until the last word. Alexis is looking at him with sad eyes, and it makes David feel like he’s under a microscope, like she could reach into his heart and pull out the bullet points of his sad little life like she did that one time she did a book report on his journal and still got a B+. 

He’s just about to shrug off her hand, he really is, when they hear Millie’s voice, faint from the top of the stairwell, calling Alexis’s name.

“Go,” he says with one final small, sad sniff, and she squeezes his arm before she leaves, blessing him with the small kindness of keeping her mouth shut as she goes. He takes several deep breaths, each steadier than the last, before he double-checks that Alexis closed the door behind her and pulls off his shirt, making an earnest attempt at washing it. He finds a box of café employee shirts and slips one on as he wrings out the sleeves of his shirt. He spends far too long trying to arrange the shirt over the side of the sink without actually  _ touching  _ the sink, but when his makeshift shelf falls apart and clatters to the ground, he decides that wrinkles aren’t permanent and folds it gently instead.

He’s half-way up the stairs as Alexis is on her way down. “Ohmygod, David! You didn’t tell me that Mr. Owl Eyes was-”

“ — a walking menace? Glad to see your outfit survived.”

She looks surprised. “No, I was going to say that he’s —”

“Not horrible looking, yeah I know.”

She opens her mouth to say something but clicks it closed at the last minute. “You know what? Yes. That’s exactly what I was going to say.” She’s got that look she used to get when she was the first one to find their Christmas/Chanukah presents and wasn’t going to tell him where they were.

“He’s all yours,” David says, and it’s supposed to sound funny, sound light and gallant and off-the-cuff. But he’s tired and it’s been a monumentally weird morning, so he just leans into the weirdness and boops her on the nose. “I’m going home. Good luck tonight.”

He trudges up the stairs and takes a second to slide the door open gently with his foot, looking left and right before making his exit. He nods to Millie, and Zach, and the other girl behind the counter whose name he doesn’t know, and when Millie calls out to him, he’s tempted to keep walking. He’s so, so close. But it’s Millie, and she’s a sweetheart, and if it’s something Roland needs help with, he’d rather do it now.

But then she hands him a post-it note and he tucks it into his palm until he’s in his car and he can focus on the cramped, neat little writing. It’s an apology from Mr. Owl Eyes — he’s offering to pay for the shirt, and apologizing for any physical pain the tea caused, and he makes a crack about the emotional toll of constant vigilance. It’s not really funny, but it’s cute, and it makes David smile. He almost misses it, the little PS tucked into the corner, but of course he doesn’t. He reads it once, and then again, and then a third time.

Mr. Owl Eyes wants to meet. On purpose. No liquids involved, it sounds like. And David hears Patrick’s voice: 

_ “Never know who you might run into.” _

David spends the rest of the drive home debating.

He debates through his much longed-for shower, through an organic piece of chocolate cake he bought explicitly for the afternoon, through the eucalyptus face mask he applies every evening. He debates until he feels like his brain might leak out of his ears, and then he stops thinking about it entirely because his gut is telling him to go. His gut is  _ screaming  _ at him to go. And all the parts of his heart that are still confused by Patrick are just going to have to shut up and get in line. 

*

“David, I need your help!”

“You already had my help, Alexis.”

“No, like,  _ now _ . We’re swamped.”

He can hear the noise behind her, the murmur of people and the gentle clink of glass and porcelain and tables being knocked into. He lets his head fall backwards on his neck and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“It’s my night off, Alexis.”

“Oh, please. Can we just skip the part where we pretend you’re not already dressed and half out the door and get to the moment where you realize that your  _ adorable baby sister  _ is literally  _ begging  _ you for help.”

She’s speaking mostly in italics and with very few exclamation points, which is how he knows it’s serious. He bites his lip and lets her dangle for a few seconds before he sighs heavily.

“Give me half-an-hour. I need to do my hair.” He hangs up before she can respond.

Of course he’s already dressed. He smooths his hands down the front of his Givenchy flame sweater and is out the door in fifteen. 

When he gets to the café, he’s pleased to see that it’s just busy as Alexis made it sound. Almost every spot is full, and he can see a little line forming in the entryway. He slips around it and into the basement, where he grabs two more bottles of rosé and heads to the makeshift bar that’s been set up in the far corner of the café, in between the end of the coffee counter and the tiny stage that runs along the back wall. His sister is there, filling little plastic airplane cups of wine and schmoozing.

She doesn’t see David right away and David takes a minute to watch her. She’s in her element, carrying on animated if short discussions with the parade of people who enter her sphere, and David watches as a good number of them pull out their phones and tap around as Alexis talks. From the way Alexis smiles after she glances at their screens, David assumes the cafés social media numbers are getting quite the boost. He slides into the line of people and takes time getting up to his sister. When he does, he slides both bottles of wine towards her.

“David! Oh my God thank God, we needed a refill.”

“I’m not surprised! Has it been like this all night?”

“Yes,” Alexis wipes a hand across the back of her brow. “Roland’s wife was supposed to help, but I guess she got last minutes to the Poison concert at the casino and, in the words of Roland, you don’t miss the chance to talk dirty back to Rikki Rocket.”

“Ew.”

“Tell me about it.” Alexis looks at him with giant puppy dog eyes and the last piece falls into place for David.

“No.”

“Come on, David!”

“Absolutely not. I did not come here to bartend, Alexis!”

“I thought you came to help!”

“I thought you meant in, like, an emotional support capacity!”

“Well, I don’t.” She crosses her arms. “David, please?”

He huffs and shifts his weight and rolls his eyes and half a dozen time-stalling things he knows bug the shit out of her before he says, “Fine. At least let me get a cup of coffee.”

“Absolutely. Just, you know. Quickly? I’m supposed to get this thing started, like, five minutes ago.”

“Then stop talking to me and let me go get in line already.”

“Now who’s still talking?”

He has to push against a decent crowd, and the line is long enough that he slips his phone out of his pocket as he takes his spot behind a guy in tight dark wash jeans and a respectable navy blazer. He pulls up the cafés instagram and clicks through to the hashtag Alexis created for the open mic, his eyes flitting back to Blazer Guy every few seconds. He’s tall enough, he could be Mr. Owl Eyes — the entire reason he's here, really. Mostly. But Blazer Guy’s hair doesn’t seem quite right, and he’s already decided he’s going to let Mr. Owl Eyes find him. He left the note, he can do the looking. He refocuses his attention on his phone, scrolling through filtered pictures of the crowd, group selfies against various backdrops he recognizes from the room he’s standing in. He likes a couple, still scrolling as the music playing in the background slowly filters into his brain. 

He starts humming along, because it’s fucking  _ Stevie Knicks  _ and he’s a human being with a functional heart, but it’s also decidedly not Stevie’s voice. The voices sound familiar, reedy and a little haunting, and he feels like he could probably place them if the guy in front of him wasn’t also singing along, just quiet enough to distract David.

He’s got a good voice, Mr. Blazer, and David can’t help but notice he’s got a nice ass, too, because again — human being. The song hits its peak, and he and Mr. Bazer hit the high note, little whisper-sung versions of “go your own way” that makes David smile at the back of this stranger’s head. The song cycles through the instrumental section and winds to a close as they take one step closer to the counter.

“That was “Go Your Own Way”, covered by The Lumineers. Up next on Beneath the Covers, we’ve got Ed Sheeran doing the infamous “Wonderwall.” 

David rolls his eyes and says, none too quietly, “What  _ is it  _ with DJs and The Lumineers?”

And it’s only because he’s got nowhere else to put his eyes that he sees Mr. Blazer’s shoulder bristle. He goes still and stiff and David’s good enough at reading people to know he’s said something he shouldn’t have. He wraps his arms in front of his chest and braces to backtrack when the guy in front of him spins around slowly and — 

David wants to choke on his tongue, because of course it’s Mr. Owl Eyes. David is here because he’d gotten a cute little post-it note asking him to come, from a man whose name he doesn't know, and here he is. Right in front of him, at a respectable distance, not crashing into him or spilling something on him or paying for his coffee and disappearing without a word. He’s right here, and he’s looking at David like he’s an oasis in a desert, like David is the final piece to a puzzle he’s spent his life putting together. It’s a hungry look, and it makes David shiver. Mr. Owl Eyes quirks an eyebrow and his eyes are still huge, but now they’re playful, playing with David and his heart’s ability to maintain a normal rhythm.

“What’s wrong with The Lumineers? Not a folk fan?”

And the world.

Falls.

Away.

Because David knows that voice, knows that teasing tone, knows the sound of the smile that’s crawling across Mr. Owl Eye’s face. David’s jaw drops and and Mr. Owl Eyes runs a hand through his own hair and shoves the other one in his pocket, a movement so sheepish and so surprised that it makes all the soft parts of David melt. David makes a noise, a sad little moany thing in the back of his throat that makes Mr. Owl Eye’s gaze flit to his mouth, which makes the sound worse until David literally wraps his lips around his teeth and clamps down. David can’t think of what to say, has too many things to say, and he’s only just started forming words when his sister’s voice comes over the speakers and fills the small building.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to go ahead and get things started today. Thank you all so much for coming to the first ever Chez Roland open mic night! We are so glad you all decided to join us this evening, we’ve got some really great acts lined up for you all. Starting with a performance from one of our sponsors - we are truly so, so blessed.” She makes little prayers hands and holds them out to the crowd. “And with his help, I think this is the first in a long line of really, really great events. Now, I know  _ some  _ of you are going to be, just, the most excited for our first act tonight.” She catches David’s eye, and he’s torn between looking at Patrick and taking in his sister’s shit-eating grin. “Everyone, put your hands together for your local DJ — and hometown hottie, if I do say so myself — Patrick Brewer.”

And it’s him. It’s really him. Holy shit, holy shit, holy  _ shit, _ Mr. Owl Eyes is Patrick, Patrick  _ is  _ Mr. Owl Eyes, and David feels like gravity is rearranging itself as his brain reconciles these two pieces of information. He vaguely remembers trying to look Patrick up, once, when he first started calling, but there had just been one of those little grey placeholder squares. And David is really,  _ really  _ losing his mind because now that he’s here, staring at Owl-Eyed-Patrick, he thinks he even looks a little like that placeholder outline. Like the shoulders are the same. But of course, Patrick isn’t an outline. He’s a real, live, breathing human being who is standing where David’s hands could be touching him, and aren’t, which feels so cosmically unfair.

Patrick stares at him for another beat, looking back and forth between David and the stage before he gives David a little shrug and a small smile, his mouth thin, bracketed by little dimples that remind David of parenthesis. He slips past, getting close enough that David can smell him, a mixture of something woodsy and clean and minty, and his brain thinks he smells like a bluegrass song, even though David has no idea what that actually means. 

He hops up onto the stage and grabs a guitar from where it’s been set in the corner, against the piano. He slips the strap over his shoulder and plucks a few random notes as he steps up to the mic.

“Thank you so much, Alexis, and thank you all so much for coming out tonight. 94.1 is super excited about this event, and I just want to reassure you guys, it’s all uphill from here.” He chuckles, and so does the crowd, but David doesn’t really hear it. He takes a step towards the stage, and then another one, his feel moving of their own accord as David’s eyes won’t leave Patrick’s face.

He’s spent months listening to this voice, this same teasing lilt, without seeing the perfect, pink lips that formed the words, without being able to watch the way Patrick's face seems to carry its own conversation, separate from the words he's saying. It's hard to focus on Patrick’s words when his hands keep moving across the guitar strings, strumming mindlessly in the background of his little speech, but — David is mesmerized. He feels like he's living some kind of dream. Things like this don't happen to David Rose. He's supposed to spend the next several months pining for a man he can’t have while lacklusterly dating a person he’s just happen to come across. 

But those people, they're the same people, and David isn’t feeling lackluster about any of it. Especially when Patrick clears his throat and looks at him with those big, sincere, vulnerable eyes as he says, “I was going to dedicate this song to a new friend, but I think I just realized that maybe…maybe he isn’t such a new friend after all. It’s a small world out there, folks. You never know who you may run into.” He winks at David, who is somehow still alive even though his heart has officially stopped beating. 

Patrick starts strumming and it takes David a second to realize what song it is. When he does, he has to force his lungs to take in oxygen. Patrick is looking at him with that open,  _ adorable  _ face and singing about being wild, and wired, and completely on fire. For David. About making his heart strong, and lifetimes of promises and worlds of dreams. For David. About being and finding The One Person. 

For David. 

And even when the words are done, and Patrick is just singing, long notes drawn from the back of his throat in a series of little ‘oooohs’, David thinks it might be just as good as Tina’s. Better than Tina’s. The best song he’s ever heard in his entire life. 

The crowd applauds and it takes David a second before he gets the feeling back in his hands, and then he’s clapping, too. And it feels too small, too contained, this repeated little press of palms together, over and over again. Patrick looks sheepish as he raises a hand in thanks to the crowd, setting the guitar carefully back in it’s stand. He hops off the stage and if this were a movie, the crowd would part in front of him and the hardwood would glow in a line that lead him directly to David.

Instead, he has to navigate his way through the crowd, has to stop several times to say thank you to well-wishers, and David tracks him the entire time, the spark under his skin turning to lightning with each step Patrick takes in his direction. It takes David’s entire lifetime for Patrick to finally be standing in front of him. When he finally is, David doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He opens his mouth to say a million different things - ‘is this happening?’ and ‘are you really?’ and ‘I wanted it to be you’ all crowd through his head, but the thing that comes out is, “I love that song.”

Patrick laughs and takes another step towards him, ducking his head. “I have it on good authority it is a  _ remarkably _ underrated love song.” His gaze slips from David’s eyes to his lips, back to his eyes, in a circular motion that feels like a caress.

“You know people with good opinions, then,” David says, stepping forward and slipping his fingers underneath the lapels of his jacket. He doesn’t want to wrinkle the fabric, so he doesn’t pull or bunch of move, just leaves his hands resting on Patrick’s chest, fingers grazing his collarbones. His left hand sits precariously close to Patrick’s heart and David makes a little ‘hm’ sound. Patrick’s eyes go wide, but so does his smile, and even without moving his body is pressing into David’s hands. David presses back, leaning in and meeting Patrick’s lips halfway.

And it’s nothing like he imagined, because he’d never let himself imagine this moment with Patrick. With a charming, flirty, insistant folk fan who’d wormed his way into David’s heart with banter and power hours and the fucking Lumineers. But if he had let himself imagine it, had let himself picture the steady, strong hands that land lightly on his hips, the warm breath ghosting across his lips, the sound of the quick little inhale Patrick takes in before they kiss – he doesn’t think he could’ve done it justice.

Because this? This is the best. Better than all the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, so much, all of you who have taken the time to read this story. For those who have commented and kudos'd and [sent me tumblr love](http://ships-to-sail.tumblr.com), my gratitude knows no bounds. I love you like David loves Mariah and Patrick loves The Lumineers.
> 
> [storieswelove](http://storieswelove.tumblr.com) is the world's best beta and a dear new friend, and I am immensely grateful for both. 
> 
> I just love these two goobers and so on this, the eve of season six, I wanted to send them off with all the love they deserve. Come say hi on tumblr and, of course, don't forget you can [listen to What the Folk](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2DBZQbygq31wPSbyajEQKC?si=qxWhCuFdTf-OkpTPuhhqtw) any time you need a little pick me up <3

**Author's Note:**

> All titles come from various The Lumineers songs.
> 
> Because obviously.


End file.
